‘Olympian truce’ or stasis in France amid continuing political gridlock?
New Delhi, July 24 – It has been a fortnight-plus since the second round of the French parliamentary elections, and the country — on the surface — appears the same. President Emmanuel Macron is still in the Elysee Palace, Gabriel Attal is still Prime Minister, and National Assembly President Yael Braun-Pivet has been re-elected to the post. But appearances are deceptive.
The superficial calm hides the fact that the country is still without a government — with PM Attal in the post to handle day-to-day affairs. It is also likely to go without one till the end of the Paris Olympics in early August at least — as the President is not bound by any deadline for the formation of a new government.
Meanwhile, the deadlock persists in the National Assembly where none of the three major blocs is anywhere close to a majority on its own, and their widely divergent political orientations make any coalition virtually inconceivable.
In the process, the country may get more and more ungovernable as the divisions between the far right, Macron’s centrists, and the leftist coalition – which comprise the third-largest, second-largest, and the largest blocs in the Assembly but all well short of a majority — harden.
The far-right National Rally is still smarting from the “marriage of convenience” between Macron’s Ensemble and the left New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire) in the second round, where both parties withdrew the weaker candidates to set up a one-to-one fight with it. This unprecedented tactical alliance seemed to have checkmated the Marine Le Pen-led party’s most serious bid for power after it put on a strong showing in the first round.
However, the collateral consequence will be that it is not going to be amenable to any compromise with either of its opponents.
On the other hand, the victory of Braun-Pivet of Macron’s party, over NFP challenger, communist Andre Chassaigne, which was achieved with the help of the Republicans, or rather, a faction of the rightwing party not allied to the National Rally, may be a morale booster for now but could queer its pitch ahead vis a vis the Left.
The political sleight of hand is not going to leave the Left happy as it deprives them of a key post in the hung chamber and is likely to prevent them from trusting Macron’s party for any further initiative.
On the other hand, the NFP, which was cobbled ahead of the elections and comprises a gamut spanning from hard-left (France Unbowed/La France Insoumise) to the communists and socialists to the Greens, and also having some Trotskyites, is also not a very homogenous bloc.
This week, it had proposed left-leaning economist Laurence Tubiana as its Prime Ministerial candidate but France Unbowed Jean-Luc Melenchon, which is the biggest component of the group, was not on board and wanted its own candidate. This disarray will work further to the advantage of Macron in not inviting it yet to form the government.
Another possibility mentioned is the formation of a non-party technocratic government, as was seen in neighbouring Italy under Mario Draghi (February 2021-October 2022) before Giorgia Meloni won the 2022 Assembly elections to become Prime Minister in her own right.
But in the episode, there is a point of caution. Draghi’s appointment came after the resignation of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose stint in power was divided into two parts – one supported by a right-wing coalition, and the second supported by a centre-left coalition. And when the Draghi-led ‘national unity’ government fell, all the parties that were supporting it, fared badly in the polls. Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), which had not supported the Draghi regime, was the chief beneficiary.
A technocratic government, which is generally resorted to when politically unpopular actions, such as austerity measures, need to be implemented, is unlikely to survive long in France as it can be removed by a simple vote of no-confidence and both the left and the right would not shrink from such a measure.
Eventually, the loser in the whole embroglio could be President Macron, whose major gamble in calling a snap parliamentary election after his party’s defeat to the far-right in the European Parliament elections in June, did not accomplish what he had envisaged. He had reportedly likened his move to throwing “an unpinned grenade at their (far-right’s) feet” but grenades can be notably unpredictable weapons and he and his party got a blowback.
His Ensemble could yet form the government — but at the sufferance of the National Rally, which would like to see its left opponents cool their heels out of power despite topping in numbers. However, the efficacy and longevity of such a government will remain suspect.
France seems poised for interesting political gymnastics after the Olympic flame is handed over.
