France held a snap Legislative Assembly election over the sundays of 30 June and 07 July. The elections were held because President Macron was basically unable to get his reforms through the Assembly despite his party holding power, with Le Pen's National Rally slowly gaining support amongst the urban working class, a massive immigration crises (far bigger than UK's) and pressure from the ECB to sort his country's finances out as they are on the verge of putting France in 'special measures'.
France operates a system similar to the UK's constituency based set-up, however it is held over two legs to allow voters to change their minds etc. This usually results in people voting for who they actually support in the first leg, followed by a week of horse-trading by the beaten parties and groups to stand down in favour of each other across various seats, then the electorate voting again but this time they tend to vote against who they don't want to win as opposed to who they do. This is known as 'clothes-pegging' - ie voting for who stinks the least as opposed to who smells the best.
Clothes-Pegging
This is a fair system that ensures everybody is equally unhappy with the final result and paves the way for France's popular summer-time sport of rioting.
France's favourite summer pastime
since the days of Madame Guillotine
since the days of Madame Guillotine
In the first round (30 June) Marine Le Pen's populist-Right party National Rally were the dominant group.
However the second round - which took place on 7 July preceded by the usual shadey back-room deals and then endorsed by voter clothes-pegging produced a totally different pattern with the other two major groups - fronted by Macron's centrist Renaissance party, and the Left coalition - fronted by Melanchon's far-Left NUPES, along with the non-aligned centre-Right Les Républicains party managing to cobble together agreements in enough seats to stand down in favour of each other with the final result having the Leftist NPF bloc taking the most seats (but not a majority), the centrist Ensemble bloc taking the next largest and the populist-Right NR/UXD the third largest bloc. The rest of the seats being won by minor parties and independents.
Second Round Vote Share - Turn Out 66.63%
The NPF bloc, fronted by Melanchon's NUPES consisted of 54 parties and protest groups ranging from extreme-ecologists, to communists, socialists, Trotskyist revolutionaries, anarchists, regional nationalists and others. It is broadly highly EU-sceptic but also contains anti & pro-EU elements. It is anti-NATO except for the bits that aren't, and is a highly unstable and in parts toxic alliance (and it won). It want's food prices freezing, rents freezing, state benefits increasing sharply, state retirement at 60, 90% tax on the wealthy, a 30 hour 4-day week with no loss of gross pay and massive government borrowing (cracking-on for an extra €300bn). The ECB is already having kittens as well as nightmares. Between them, the bloc took 188 seats (+57).
The Ensemble bloc, fronted by Macrons Renaissance consisted of 8 political parties who are all broadly centrist and economically & socially liberal. Pro-EU, pro-NATO it was really just trying to keep things as they are, with no lurches left or right. Between them, the bloc took 161 seats (-76).
The National Rally bloc, fronted by Le Pen's populist-Right NR, also contained UXD - which itself is a smaller bloc of far-Right and extreme-Right parties. It wanted a far stricter immigration policy with forced returns (similar to Italy's 'push back' policy), the re-instatement of France's borders, a move back from the €uro to the franc and abandoning Freedom of Movement and possibly even the entire EU. Between them they won 142 seats (+53).
The remainder of parties that stood in the second round won between 48 seats (Les Republicains) through to zero seats.
Final Results by Bloc & Seat Allocation
At that point you would think it would be a fairly straightforward Coalition government of two blocs - the centrist Ensemble and the Left's NPF. Well you would wouldn't you - that would make sense. Except that that would be wrong - this is France. These blocs are not set in stone and what follows next is weeks - possibly months, of wrangling and side deals as the dominant party of each bloc tries to peel-off smaller members of the other's bloc in order to try and get a majority of seats. To further confuse matters, the majority of the French electorate voted for parties that were either anti-EU or extremely EU-sceptic.
Clearly, by calling a snap election, Macron has jumped from the frying pan into the fire. His bloc - Ensemble, has been trounced after holding an effective majority since 2017 (although since 2022 he required a small side-coalition at times). He must now play second fiddle to an ideological hard Left that poses a much greater threat to economic sanity than Le Pen’s populist-Right RN at the other end and both of whom refuse point blank to have anything at all to do with him. And to cap it all, the very reason Macron called the election - to avoid having to rule by Presidential Decree because he couldn't get his reforms through the Legislature amongst other issues, has produced a result that has created a far more divided House that will basically ignore him and he will have to use Decrees more often, in turn making him more unpopular with the public at large. He can't even call another Assembly election - France's constitution means there cannot be another election for a minimum of 12 months no matter how badly this Assembly performs - or indeed fails to perform at all (which is one of the reasons a French President can rule by Decree over issues - effectively a democratic dictatorship).
Clearly, by calling a snap election, Macron has jumped from the frying pan into the fire. His bloc - Ensemble, has been trounced after holding an effective majority since 2017 (although since 2022 he required a small side-coalition at times). He must now play second fiddle to an ideological hard Left that poses a much greater threat to economic sanity than Le Pen’s populist-Right RN at the other end and both of whom refuse point blank to have anything at all to do with him. And to cap it all, the very reason Macron called the election - to avoid having to rule by Presidential Decree because he couldn't get his reforms through the Legislature amongst other issues, has produced a result that has created a far more divided House that will basically ignore him and he will have to use Decrees more often, in turn making him more unpopular with the public at large. He can't even call another Assembly election - France's constitution means there cannot be another election for a minimum of 12 months no matter how badly this Assembly performs - or indeed fails to perform at all (which is one of the reasons a French President can rule by Decree over issues - effectively a democratic dictatorship).
In this, the 66th year of France's 'Fifth Republic', it's National Assembly has never been so deeply and ideologically divided. The disastrous result calls into question Macron's competence and seriously undermines his chances of winning the 2027 Presidentials. His much-needed pro-business reforms were lauded abroad and within the financial markets and the ECB, but were met with hostility at home were they were perceived as cruel and unjust (unemployment benefits were slashed, workers rights reduced, retirement ages raised) however as the French are about to find out, they were actually needed to prevent economic collapse in France, especially as France is a €uro-member and as such the ECB has a massive say in France's spending (watch for fireworks between the ECB & Melanchons's NPF at some stage).
France has a national debt that is now officially at 112% of GDP - outside ECB tolerances and when you include off-sheeted government liabilities, closer to 165% of GDP and climbing. They have a current budget deficit of 5.5% of GDP. It's credit rating is falling and it is starting to witness the beginnings of 'capital flight'. It needs serious and meaningful large-scale economic reforms and it needs them quickly. It was against this backdrop that President Macron dissolved the Assembly and called the snap election. And just like a certain other height-challenged French leader he admires, met his 'Waterloo'.
France has a national debt that is now officially at 112% of GDP - outside ECB tolerances and when you include off-sheeted government liabilities, closer to 165% of GDP and climbing. They have a current budget deficit of 5.5% of GDP. It's credit rating is falling and it is starting to witness the beginnings of 'capital flight'. It needs serious and meaningful large-scale economic reforms and it needs them quickly. It was against this backdrop that President Macron dissolved the Assembly and called the snap election. And just like a certain other height-challenged French leader he admires, met his 'Waterloo'.
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