Editorial
France’s far right did not win vote but are still waiting in the wings
It is clear that the world needs a strong, united and stable France, but the weekend’s election result, while stopping the surging far right in its tracks for now, has delivered the sort of unresolved chaos that can only pitch the nation into political and economic turmoil.
France faces a hung parliament with a leftist alliance, the New Popular Front, taking the top spot ahead of the far right with nobody winning a majority.
French President Emmanuel MacronCredit: AP
Polls had suggested Marine Le Pen’s Eurosceptic anti-immigration National Rally was going to romp home, especially after French voters expressed strong support for her candidates in June’s European elections, but this time electors dumped them to third spot.
If the result was bad for Le Pen, it was a disaster for centrist President Emmanuel Macron, who called the early election in a bid to head off Le Pen, restore the parliamentary majority his centrist Ensemble alliance lost two years ago and fortify his presidency for his remaining three years in office.
Macron may be perceived as popular among Australians, but he is loathed in large parts of France, where he took over the centre ground of French politics in 2017 and proceeded to shrink it with unpopular pension reforms, spending cuts and fast-rising deficits and debts of 112 per cent of GDP.
With all three blocs falling well short of the 289 seats needed to control the 577-seat National Assembly, Macron now faces the prospect of sharing power with a left-wing alliance that finds most of his centrist policies anathema.
France has not had lawmakers from rival political camps coming together to form a majority for a long time. Previously, its experience was so traumatic with coalitions regularly falling apart after the Second World War that only Charles de Gaulle’s installation as president in 1959 finally stopped the rot.
Macron said on Monday he would “wait” to make decisions on a new government. His prime minister Gabriel Attal plans to present his resignation but said if needed he could stay on through the Paris Olympics or longer.
While the result has also thrown a large shadow over the Olympics, the political turmoil means France now faces the prospect of weeks of political machinations to determine who will be prime minister and lead the National Assembly.
That sort of drift can only rattle markets and the French economy, the EU’s second-largest, and have far-ranging implications for the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability.
Le Pen, who will stand in the 2027 presidential election, shook off her far right party’s failure to win government, instead warning the National Rally result had sown the seed for the future. “Our victory has been merely delayed,” Le Pen said.
The world needs a strong France to face the challenges ahead. But with the havoc and mayhem likely to ensue when, and if, the left and centre agree to share power, we fear Le Pen’s bravado may be a prescient warning.
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