An era has ended in France.
President Emmanuel Macron’s seven-year dominance of national politics came to an end when his party suffered a landslide defeat in the first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday. He not only dissolved the National Assembly by calling a surprise vote, but also disbanded the centrist movement known as “Macronism.”
The far-right National Rally, by winning a third of the vote, is not guaranteed an outright majority in the run-off election in six days’ time, although it is likely to be very close. But Mr Macron, risking everything by calling the election, has ultimately ensured that he will be marginalised, perhaps by no more than a third of the seats his party currently holds.
“In effect, the decision to dissolve the National Assembly puts an end to the political configuration that emerged from the 2017 presidential election,” said Édouard Philippe, one of Mr Macron’s former prime ministers.
In 2017, Mr Macron, then 39, swept to power, wiping out the centre-right Gaullists and centre-left socialists who had been the backbone of postwar France, in the name of a 21st-century reorientation around a pragmatic centre. It worked for a while, but increasingly, as Mr Macron failed to form a credible centrist political party, the result was one man and an ever-shrinking band of allies pitted against the extremes of the right and left.
That stance, which at times worked to Mr Macron’s advantage, has now collapsed in one of the most self-inflicted disasters in recent European politics.
Mr Macron did not have to call an election just weeks before the Paris Olympics, even though the National Deputies defeated him in the European elections. It is a measure of the desperation of France that a narrow victory for Mr Macron will now be defined as keeping the National Deputies, led by Marine Le Pen, from winning an absolute majority in parliament, even if the price is uncontrollable chaos.
“They are done,” Luc Rouban, a senior fellow at Sciences Po University in Paris, said of Mr Macron’s centrist movement. “I don’t see any room for maneuver.”
France, unlike Italy or Belgium, does not have a culture of living in limbo without a designated government for long periods of time. But that possibility is now present.
If the National Party wins an absolute majority, Mr Macron will almost certainly have to live with Jordan Bardella, 28, a protégé of Ms Le Pen, as his prime minister because the party would move to oust anyone else. But Mr Macron and Mr Bardella — with opposing views — would find themselves in an uneasy partnership.
Without such a majority in the National Convention, Mr Macron would face a large far-right group, and a large left-wing and far-left coalition in the National Assembly, all of whom are fiercely opposed to him. It is unclear how he would form a governing coalition. The only possibility would be some form of interim government led by technocrats while waiting for the National Assembly to be dissolved again in a year, when the Constitution allows it again.
The National Congress Party and its allies have qualified for the second round of voting in more than 480 districts and are leading or directly elected in 297 of them, according to a Franceinfo results analysis. By contrast, Mr Macron’s centrist coalition is set to lose many of the 250 seats it has held since 2022, qualifying for a second round in 319 districts and leading or being directly elected in only 69 of them. A party needs 289 seats to hold an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
Mr Macron’s Renaissance Party has urged its candidates to withdraw from several constituency races where they finished third in the first round. The aim is to avoid splitting the vote and thus prevent the far-right from winning an outright majority.
In another sign of division, however, some centrists have been reluctant to do so in support of the left because of what they see as a disastrous economic program and the statements of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left leader who is a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause and has repeatedly crossed the line into anti-Semitism.
“Nobody chose this dissolution,” Gabriel Attal, the outgoing prime minister and a former Macron favorite, said plainly on Monday. “But I refuse to let us be its victims.”
Mr Macron, who has a term limit and must leave office in 2027, will remain president and if Mr Bardella becomes prime minister, he will surely position himself as a bulwark against the far-right, which views immigrants as second-class.
But his authority over domestic policy will be limited and his voice on the international stage, traditionally the exclusive province of French presidents, will be diminished, especially on the European Union, where the euro-sceptic National Rally will do everything it can to return power from Brussels to the nation. Mr Macron is a strong proponent of what he calls “European power”.
It was surprising that both Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella chose to deliver their victory speeches on Sunday against the backdrop of the French flag, without the blue and yellow European Union flag that hangs from every town hall and government office in France, including the Hôtel de Matignon, the prime minister’s residence, and the Élysée Palace, the president’s residence. The message that international priorities are changing was unmistakable.
So why is Mr Macron calling elections?
It seemed clear that he had miscalculated, especially on the left, which he thought would split between moderate socialists and Mr Mélenchon’s France Unconquerable, increasing his party’s chances of qualifying for the second round. That split never happened. Instead, the new Popular Front coalition of those leftist parties won 27.99 percent of the vote to Mr Macron’s 20.04 percent, and secured a place in more second-round elections.
A second miscalculation was that Mr Macron believed he could still be a unifying figure as hostility towards him grew during his seven years as president. He wanted to embody the Republic and its values against the extremes. Too few voters were willing to accept that.
Instead, they seemed alienated by his aloofness and highly personal rule, as demonstrated by his shock decision to call elections. The long-standing taboo against a National Convention was no longer taken into account.
“This is a personal rejection,” said Jacques Rupnik, a political scientist. “People no longer want Macron to bring them together.”
If that is the case, as it appears, it would be a devastating blow for Mr. Macron. A man of extraordinary intelligence, with a wink and charm, he has always fancied himself able to convince anyone from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to former President Donald J. Trump of the United States to agree with him. It has not always worked, but his bold determination to break down political barriers has never waned.
He talked to Putin for months after the war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, when almost no one else in the West did. This year, he did not rule out sending Western troops into Ukraine, when almost everyone, including President Biden, rejected the idea. He declared that Europe faced “death” if it did not begin to free itself from the United States, when so many other European countries thought that driving a wedge between allies would be a death knell. Finally, with a small group of advisers, he called the election, much to the consternation of many of his ministers, who considered it a near-suicidal move.
“Macron’s thinking is that the house will burn down in three years,” said Nicole Bacharan, an author and political scientist, referring to the possibility of Le Pen winning the 2027 presidential election. “So burn it down now. Then we’ll see.”
France is a country with strong institutions and a deep democratic tradition underpinned by the rule of law. It is not easily burned down. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a nuclear power, it holds an important place in international affairs that will remain, even if its domestic difficulties affect that to some extent.
The country’s economy, thanks in part to Mr Macron’s policies, has attracted huge amounts of foreign investment in recent years, and unemployment has fallen. Even as the country’s debt and budget deficit have ballooned to levels that have alarmed the European Commission and ratings agencies, its economic vitality appears greater than that of ailing Germany. No one driving through France sees a country on the brink.
But Mr Macron has taken France to a dangerous crossroads. There is a reason why a political barrier has long been built against the National Party, with its quasi-fascist history (now denied) and its persistent belief that immigrants dilute the essence of the French nation. The party evokes extreme reactions and painful memories of the collaborative wartime Vichy regime.
Many members of France’s large Muslim minority, estimated at around five million, fear Nationalist rule. Overall, a deep sense of uncertainty has gripped France.
“Arson is dangerous,” Ms. Bacharan said, “and Mr. Macron must know that.”
