The “Olympic truce” did nothing to clarify the French political situation. Now that President Macron has definitively rejected the New Popular Front’s prime minister-designate, Lucie Castets, an epidemic of bad faith has broken out across the political spectrum. Many ardent voices proclaim that the president has perpetrated “un déni de démocratie” by refusing to appoint a prime minister from the political formation that “won” the election.
But those who take this position fail to recognize a number of salient points. First, this formation commands fewer than 1/3 of the votes in the National Assembly. Second, the tradition that the PM should be drawn from the party with the largest number of seats is just that, a tradition, not a constitutional requirement. It is a tradition justified by 60 years of practice in which the largest party (and its partners) commanded a majority or near-majority, thus ensuring that the median voter would be close in spirit to a prime minister chosen from that party. Moreover, the parties that established that tradition were far more coherent and organized than is the NFP, a very loose political formation whose recent past and current squabbles suggest that is more a convenient and opportunistic façade than the bearer of a coherent governmental program or even political ideology.
That said, it might have been politically wiser for Macron to have nominated Lucie Castets malgré tout, simply to force the other parties to deny her their confidence, as they promised they would in private consultations with the Elysée. It might also have been wiser for Castets to have sought a (probably impossible) compromise with figures outside the NFP a) to prove that she recognized the minority position of the NFP and b) to stake out areas in which the NFP might be prepared to compromise. Still, in any case, the result would almost certainly have been the same.
Hence the cris d’orfraie of déni de démocratie are misplaced. In fact, the current impasse is precisely the consequence of democracy, since it accurately reflects the deeply divided state of the electorate as well as the unfortunate lacuna in the constitution of the Fifth Republic, which never envisaged a situation like the one in which France currently finds itself.
Unfortunately, Macron’s instincts are likely to make a bad situation worse. I could be wrong about his thinking, but he seems to have concluded a) that the left has no chance of forming a viable government, b) that he cannot appoint a prime minister from the remnants of his own former Renaissance (because the perception has taken hold that the result of the legislative election was to inflict on this group a loss so severe as to constitute a loss of legitimacy), and finally c) that he should therefore seek a prime minister from the party recently rebaptized La Droite Républicaine. This would have the paradoxical effect of shifting the government to the right of where it was, even though at least a third of the electorate believes that the left was the winner. The prospect of such a choice has many on the left calling for a mobilization of le peuple de gauche to, if I may borrow a phrase, “Stop the Steal.” The mood has thus turned even more sour than it has been.
In short, the current impasse seems to be spiraling toward a rapid delegitimation of the center in the eyes of the left and the left in the eyes of the center. With the RN waiting in the wings to reap the harvest sown by this whirlwind of blunders and missed opportunities, there is little reason to feel optimism.
7 Comments
Dear Art:
Merci de trancher la situation si clairement.
I think we are heading to a “bureaucratic” government that will last until Macron calls legislative elections a year from the last round. A minimal budget will be passed and everyone will be mad as hell with nothing moving forward.
Most French here (I am in a small village in l’Aude) think Macron is not respecting the election results and that that’s hurting the economy.
That in itself says a great deal.
The current situation helps to clarify at least one thing. Following the legislative elections of 202 Macron’s arty and allied commanded less than one third of Parliament members. The two governments formed by Macron only survived because the left did not join the far right’s motions of defiance, presumably due to a sense of elementary dignity. In the current situation were the left NFP commands just one third of Parliament members, Macron refuses to name an NFP government because it would undergo an immediate successful motion of defiance were Macron’s so-called centrist party and allies would have no hesitation voting with the far right, thus demonstrating that these people have no shame nor sense of dignity.
As for a new call for elections a year from now, what reason exactly would we have to expect a different result? My sense is that the French have voted for an immediate halt to reforms and for paralysis of the country’s bureaucracy, plain and simple. The reason for this may be that they are fed up with politicians trying to change the rules all the time to appear important just like dogs mark their territory by peeing.
REPLACES THE TEXT ABOVE – SORRY, TOO MANY TYPOS
The current situation helps to clarify at least one thing. Following the legislative elections of 2022 Macron’s Party and allies commanded about one third of Parliament members. The two governments formed by Macron only survived because the left did not join the far right’s motions of defiance, presumably due to a sense of elementary dignity. In the current situation where the left NFP commands just one third of Parliament members, Macron refuses to name an NFP government because it would undergo an immediate successful motion of defiance were Macron’s so-called centrist party and allies would have no hesitation voting with the far right, thus demonstrating that these people have no shame nor sense of dignity.
As for a new call for elections a year from now, what reason exactly would we have to expect a different result? My sense is that the French have voted for an immediate halt to reforms and for paralysis of the country’s bureaucracy, plain and simple. The reason for this may be that they are fed up with politicians trying to change the rules all the time to appear important just like dogs mark their territory by peeing.
Dear Bernard:
I must say I enjoyed tremendously your canine analogy! In Spanish, there’s an expression, “Major reir que llorar” —that is apt.
One more observation:
“Je m’enfoutisme” is in the ascendant in France now, and the vote doesn’t reflect anything as cogent as a “halt to reforms and for paralysis of the country’s bureaucracy”, as Bernard suggests. More, I see it as a reflection of the complete breakdown of French institutions —public and private— and the collapse of confidence in them.
I’ll use a simple and personal example:
I have not been able to pick-up a car from the garage where it was repaired after an accident on July 6, although the repair was completed and the “expert” signed off on the work on July 23. The garage says it didn’t receive the report, the expert says he sent it, the Customer Service company in France working for the leasing company in Canada from which I leased the car can influence neither.
I am like Sisyphus, every day pushing the rock up to the crest of the hill, only to have it fall down to where I started in the morning.
I have lived in France three to six months every year for eleven years, and I have never encountered so many hassles about getting things done. My French, British and American friends all have comparable stories of snafus and hold-ups in their daily lives recently.
One of the things which made life in France pleasant was the more relaxed attitude towards the time it takes to do something, which was simultaneously linked to a greater care in the execution of a task. —This is most obvious in the areas of craft, where the French have been non-pareil.
However, the relaxed attitude has been replaced by one of “Je m’en fous”, with the greater care aspect now dwindling. The future is not looking pretty.
Perhaps Macron could nominate someone from the furthest right part of the NFP or an acceptable technocrat with some left-wing credentials to serve as PM (I am not really familiar with Castets, who, although having significant technocratic qualifications, may be too far left). This situation sounds tailor-made for someone of that ilk who could form a relatively broad-based government that would have a number of technocrats in key positions. Bonne chance to them!
One of the omissions from the argument that the NFP should form the government because it “won” the election is the point that several center-right candidates took themselves out of the running so as to increase the size of the non-Rally vote. Ironically then, it was the strength of their OPPONENTS that put more wind behind the NFP candidates, not any groundswell of support for those candidates themselves.