Country: France

Alexandre Khadivi was until recently the foreign policy adviser to the “La France Insoumise” group in the French National Assembly. 

On 7 July, the second round of the snap legislative elections called by Emmanuel Macron a month earlier delivered startling results. As voters went to the polls, most observers agreed that Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) would obtain a majority.

In the end, the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition came out on top with 182 seats, followed by Macron’s centrist bloc with 168 seats, the far-right in third with 143, and finally the legacy centre-right group with 46.

As of writing, and with no bloc having an absolute majority, a new government has yet to form. Despite his gamble failing spectacularly, Macron obstinately refuses to nominate the NFP candidate as prime minister, hoping to find a “consensual,” centrist head of government instead.
 

How parliamentary elections work in France

Since a constitutional amendment in 2000, presidential and legislative terms align for a period of five years. As a result, once the president is elected, the legislative elections a few weeks later usually grant them an absolute majority out of 577 seats, preventing the sort of “cohabitation” impasses of the past whereby the head of state and head of government were from opposing groups.

Both presidential and parliamentary elections have two rounds. In the latter, this usually means a second-round runoff between the top two candidates. In some cases, the runoff can include additional candidates as anyone with at least 12.5% of registered electors’ votes also qualifies.
 

Why Macron dissolved Parliament

Since he was first elected in 2017, Macron has consistently played a dangerous balancing act by slowly and carefully propping up the far-right to weaken the left as much as possible. It’s a well-worn strategy in which left-wing voters have no alternative but to support the “centrist” bloc in runoffs to defeat the RN. As in 2002 and 2017, when the far-right candidate also reached the second round of the presidential elections, in 2022 a “republican front” led to Le Pen’s defeat.

Yet a few weeks later, Macron’s bloc failed to gain an absolute majority in parliament, as both the brittle left-wing New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES) coalition and the RN made inroads, illustrating the population’s increasing discontent with the president’s social policies and authoritarian tendencies.

The lack of a clear majority in parliament hindered his legislative agenda and democratic legitimacy for the next two years. This frustration led him to call a snap election right after the European parliamentary elections on 9 June, in which the RN came first with 31%. The various left-wing groups had failed to form a coalition prior to the vote, contrary to 2022.
 

Macron’s cynical calculus, and how pollsters got it wrong (but not entirely)

Macron bet on three things:

1. The left-wing groups – whose NUPES coalition had fallen apart since 2022 due to infighting – would not be a threat;
2. As in elections past, most voters would be rational enough to not vote en masse for the far-right either, potentially giving Macron a new majority;
3. Even if the far-right did gain a majority and formed a government, their incompetence until the next presidential elections in 2027 would turn the population against them.

Most pollsters predicted more than 230 seats for the far-right, based on numbers showing around 35% support for the bloc. Macron’s Ensemble movement would come in second, with the divided left-wing groups at a distance.

But within two hours of Macron’s announcement, the four main left-wing parties – Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI), The Greens, the Socialist Party (PS), and the Communists (PCF) – formed the NFP coalition. This included the decisive provision that, in each constituency, only one NFP candidate would run to avoid diluting the left-wing vote and increase chances of participating in the runoff.

Without getting into too much detail, the implicit instructions prior to the second round were:

1. In case of a runoff involving a far-right candidate, the “republican front” would ideally vote for the opponent, e.g.: Macron supporters would vote for the NFP and vice-versa;
2. In case of a three- or four-person runoff, depending on the first-round results of the specific constituency, the “republican front” candidates would decide on which of them would drop out to decrease chances of the far-right candidate winning.

Therein lie the surprises in the final results. In effect, the absolute numbers were correct:

1. 400 National Rally candidates reached the runoffs;
2. Voter turnout jumped from 46% in 2022 to an astounding 64% (the highest since 1981), indicating increasing dissatisfaction with Macron among swathes of the population;
3. The far-right bloc garnered 37% of the votes, the left-wing bloc 25%, and Macron’s bloc 23%.

Yet the left became the marginally dominant force in parliament.
 

The left moving forward

With the gradual neoliberalisation of French politics since at least the turn of the millennium, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise movement has steadily become the dominant force on the left.

Macron’s election in 2017 shattered most of the simmering contradictions and tensions in the country’s politics, centralising the neoliberal wings of the centre-left and centre-right under his rule. On the left, the legacy Socialist Party became a shell of its former self.

However, ego clashes, the PS’ comfortable insularity, and LFI’s uncompromising style on fundamental issues have made it difficult for the left to create a homogenous bloc with a long-term strategy.

It took more than three weeks of acrimonious negotiations to settle on a candidate for prime minister. Lucie Castets is a civil society nominee who ticks the right boxes: a 37-year-old woman with the “requisite” academic background, familiar with the intricacies of government, and who has fought her entire career in defence of public services and against neoliberal reforms.

Beyond the short-term, however, the numbers confirm the seemingly irrepressible rise of the RN leading up to the 2027 presidential elections.

In the event of an NFP government, the coalition should therefore lay its cards on the table from day one with two instantly impactful measures: repealing Macron’s undemocratic and wildly unpopular pension reform of 2023, and circumventing the market by fixing energy prices to alleviate the population’s financial distress.
 
 

Without an outright majority, it must therefore be bold, not limit itself to endless parliamentary infighting, and act through decrees when necessary.

In the longer term, tax reform, wage increases, investment in public health and education, and the necessary (socially minded) modernisation of the pension system must be addressed. The NFP’s programme clearly outlines these prescriptions. Without an outright majority, it must therefore be bold, not limit itself to endless parliamentary infighting, and act through decrees when necessary.

The final point is the most contentious: identity politics. Like most Western liberal democracies, these issues have become a lightning rod exploited by both neoliberals and the far-right. A large majority of the parochial Parisian media and political elites have eagerly fed what has essentially become a rabid form of islamophobia in the country. An extensive sociological literature shows that a majority of far-right voters are influenced by this even though their most pressing priorities are economic and social in nature, for which the RN has no proposals.

The left must not shy away from serenely addressing issues such as immigration, religion, and other similarly contentious matters. However, major divisions within the NFP must be overcome, particularly on the question of battling bigotry in all its forms. So far, only LFI has consistently called out islamophobia in a country where religion is an extremely awkward and taboo subject.
 

Foreign policy implications and the left’s divisions

Since the advent of the Fifth Republic, the conduct of foreign policy has been the near-exclusive remit of the head of state.

Barring some acrimonious and mostly “Franco-French” point-scoring over LFI’s unremitting condemnation of Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza, foreign policy was largely absent from the election debates. The focus should therefore be on the 2027 presidential elections.

A large spectrum of French polity understands that a more balanced, less blindly Atlanticist (read: “neo-Gaullian”) foreign policy is needed, considering the major geopolitical shifts taking place and the United States’ quasi-existential political crises of the past few years. The extent to and the manner in which this should happen are where the major fault lines lie.

Macron’s approach has been scattergun and, all too often, improvised. His first major foreign policy pronouncements explicitly denounced neoconservatism and famously declared that NATO was in a state of “brain death.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended this. He has entirely followed the maximalist NATO script on the issue and even overstepped the mark by publicly opining in May on the possibility of sending French troops directly into the theatre of operations, earning immediate rebukes from Washington, London, Berlin, and Brussels. He also came into office deriding the notion of a European defence pact before suggesting a debate on its feasibility in April, including the potential deployment of continent-wide nuclear deterrence capabilities.
 
 

Macron’s approach has been scattergun and, all too often, improvised.

Paradoxically, the NFP’s primary divisions lie precisely on the different groups’ geopolitical outlooks, with two distinct blocs: LFI and the PCF vs. PS and the Greens.

LFI and the PCF have the same broad sensibilities, the former being more vocal and explicit in its pronouncements. They share an anti-imperialist vision and are critical of NATO, Western military interventions, and neocolonialism.

They both propose leaving NATO, which they consider an aggressive military alliance that has contributed to the destabilisation of Eastern Europe. LFI in particular has consistently criticised NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders, warning of the risk of a full-blown conflict as far back as 2014. However, it explicitly condemned Russia’s invasion and supported tactical military aid to Ukraine, while calling for diplomacy and de-escalation rather than an increased military response.

LFI is also fairly radical in its prescriptions and strategy vis-à-vis the EU, which it considers an instrument of domination by the major economic powers (notably Germany). It calls for disobedience to European treaties deemed neoliberal and anti-social and is sceptical of the EU’s entirely market-based approach towards issues such as climate change, agriculture, and energy prices.

A similar dynamic is at play on Israel/Palestine where both parties are aligned but LFI is much more outspoken and insistent, thus bearing the brunt of establishment criticism. It was severely derided for choosing to call Hamas’ attack on 7 October a “war crime” rather than an act of terrorism and refusing to label it as “antisemitic.” It was also the first to explicitly call Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide and has long supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movements.
 
 

Moving forward, for the NFP to display a unified front and reach some level of consensus on foreign policy will require a delicate balancing act.

While immediately condemning Hamas’ attack as illegal, immoral, and entirely unjustifiable, LFI’s candid but clumsy attempts to situate it within the context of Israel’s brutal, decades-long occupation of Palestine invited controversy. The deafening noise and extreme emotions that the attack unleashed in France (which has both the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe) rendered any attempt at a critical analysis of the situation near impossible, especially in the immediate aftermath of 7 October. Facile accusations of antisemitism have been particularly virulent, especially from establishment circles.

Finally, on the “Global South,” both parties advocate for a profound reshaping of France’s relations, particularly in Africa, where they strongly criticise its neocolonial policies (e.g. support for “friendly” dictators, a decade-long and ultimately failed military presence in the Sahel). They call for an end to military and economic cooperation agreements detrimental to local populations and for the promotion of relations based on equality and respect for sovereignty. In LFI’s view especially, this is the first step towards tackling the root causes of migration.

The PS and the Greens are much more Europhilic, the former also carrying a traditionally Atlanticist bent. Neither of them considers leaving NATO and both fully support unconditional military and economic aid to Ukraine. The PS also supports the suspension of arms sales to Israel and targeted sanctions against West Bank settlers but has so far stopped short of calling for general economic sanctions against the country.

Segments of the more assertive anti-imperialist left argue that, while the PS’ and the Greens’ priorities are generally sound, some of their methods and policy positions betray a lack of historical outlook, long-term strategic thinking, and understanding of balance of power. For instance, they view the two parties’ efforts to reform the EU from within as quixotic and argue that the United States’ often “aggressive” and “domineering” conduct in world affairs barely figures in their thinking.

Moving forward, for the NFP to display a unified front and reach some level of consensus on foreign policy will require a delicate balancing act. This will prove difficult because of ideological differences, divergent strategic priorities, historical rivalries, vast and accelerating shifts in global politics, and internal and external pressures.

To subsist until the 2027 presidential election, where its only hope of winning rests on presenting a single candidate, the NFP will need to develop robust internal mechanisms for dialogue and compromise, while respecting the sensitivities and priorities of each group. This will require periodic reassessments of agreements to maintain unity and, most importantly, avoid the French left’s cardinal sin: its self-defeating proclivity for airing dirty laundry in public.