France in limbo UK in a changing Europe

Emiliano Grossman analyses Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections in France following the European Parliament elections. He argues that none of Macron’s potential desired outcomes are likely, and that the main immediate consequence is uncertainty. 

Just minutes after the results of the European Parliament elections in France were announced, Emmanuel Macron called early legislative elections for 30 June (first round) and 7 July (second round). This decision took most by surprise and unleashed intense debate and negotiations in the French political arena. This gamble is unlikely to solve France’s current political crisis.

It was expected that Marine Le Pen’s party, Rassemblement National (RN, National Rally), would dominate the European elections in France. As the charts below show, the first results confirmed this.

While Macron’s party Renaissance came in second, it obtained less than half of the votes obtained by the RN. Moreover, the alliance between the Socialist Party and Place Publique and its popular leader, Raphaël Glucksman, did pretty much as well as Renaissance.

While the result of an election with low turnout (51.5%) should not be overstated, the results are in line with general trends since the 2017 election, which had led to a profound restructuring of the French party system, as discussed by Gougou and Persico. This process is ongoing, and France is experiencing a period of much greater electoral volatility.

Macron’s party did well at the 2017 legislative elections, benefiting from the demobilisation of conservative and far-left voters and his own voters willing to give the new president a comfortable majority. After scoring 28% of the vote in the first round, it obtained 53% of the seats after the second round. The presidential camp proved unable to repeat this success in 2022, obtaining only 38.5% of the seats.

This does not mean, however, that the government was unable to govern. French governments do not require an investiture vote: it is enough for them to survive a confidence vote when there is one.

This weaker government led to regular confidence votes. The vast majority of those were in response to government initiatives based on article 49.3 of the constitution: a strong instrument at the disposal of weak executives where a bill is adopted unless a government is voted out. Partially thanks to this procedure, Elisabeth Borne, Macron’s Prime Minister until January 2024, managed to get several dozen bills adopted. This included the highly controversial pension reform and a bill that tightened immigrant rights.

Why then did Macron call early elections? One of the reasons advanced by his entourage concerns the difficulty of governing without a parliamentary majority. But, as we have seen, this is debatable: his government had managed to get through a number of bills.

Another argument concerns the need to respond to the message sent by voters in European elections. This argument does not hold very well, either. In 2014, the incumbent Socialists came in third with less than 14% of the vote without any tangible consequences for the government.

A third reason may make more sense. As Marine Le Pen increasingly appears as the most credible contender for the 2027 presidential contest, this snap election could force her party to take up responsibility beforehand. The cost of ruling, i.e. the necessary voter fatigue that incumbents tend to experience as time goes by, would then limit their chances for victory in 2027.

Moreover, or alternatively, Macron probably expected that this would boost his own followers and force the MPs from Les Républicains to advertise more clearly their support to his government. Les Républicains has never officially been part of the government majority, but many pro-Macron MPs originally come from this party, and the party’s support has been critical to the adoption of several major reforms in the past two years.

At the same time, he probably the hoped that the left would prove unable to organize, given its strong internal divisions. The very short notice, three weeks until the election and only one week to declare candidates, seemed to make negotiations between opponents unlikely to succeed.

Whatever the motivations, things worked out rather unexpectedly. The four main left parties managed to come to an electoral agreement in barely four days. While divisions remain, the left-wing alliance could do rather well in the upcoming elections. Moreover, Eric Ciotti, the president of the right-wing Républicains (LR, the former Gaullist party), declared an alliance with the RN on 11 June. This led to Ciotti’s exclusion from the party but could weaken the presidential camp nevertheless, as several major LR figures have followed Ciotti.

So, what comes next? In the current context, neither of the two of Macron’s (likely) favored outcomes look very realistic. A majority for the presidential camp, made up of his own party and other center-right forces, seems almost impossible, with the bloc likely to lose a large share of its seats. Meanwhile, an alliance with the Républicains, which will be fighting for electoral survival, also seems infeasible.

At the same time, the RN does not look like they could reach the absolute majority of 289 seats, even if certain polls suggest they could come close.

The more likely scenario, given currently available data, is a hung parliament, with a relative majority for the RN, a second bloc from the left and smaller center-right block. This would make any Prime Minister’s job very difficult and confidence votes are likely to be lost, possibly creating dramatic levels of government instability. A ‘technical’, i.e. non-partisan, government may become an option under these circumstances.

Jordan Bardella, the RN’s candidate for Prime Minister, has clearly stated that his party will only accept government responsibility if they obtain an absolute majority of seats. Macron would thus have to look for a figure from the left alliance, or a non-partisan public figure that would not be opposed by either the presidential camp or the left.

In any case, this dangerous gamble is unlikely to significantly reduce the chances of victory for Marine Le Pen in 2027, as the RN is unlikely to take up government responsibility after 7 July. In the meantime, it will have created a lot of uncertainty and further raised tensions in French society.

By Emiliano Grossman, Professor of Political Science, Sciences Po.