France returns to the polls this Sunday June 12 and next, June 19, in the legislative elections from which the composition of the new National Assembly must emerge. Since the legislative ones succeed the presidential ones, with a month or two of distance, the French usually give the newly elected or re-elected president the majority in Parliament so that he can apply his program. This time, however, Emmanuel Macron is not assured of a majority, and less the absolute, due to the fact that, despite his re-election with 58% of the votes, in recent months the French have shown strong discontent with the presidential performance and growing disappointment at the erosion of power and the unfulfilled promises of the first term. Other factors that question the majority of Macron’s party, now called Ensemble (Together), are its limited territorial presence and the appearance, as the main opposition force, of the left-wing alliance Nueva Unión Popular Ecológica y Social (Nupes), headed by Jean-Luc Mélenchonwhich came third in the presidential elections, with 22% of the votes.
Nupes has displaced in this legislative campaign Marine LePen to third place, despite the fact that the leader of the National Regrouping (RN) achieved 13 million votes in the presidential elections. But she herself has already thrown in the towel because it is almost impossible for the extreme right to obtain a large number of seats through the two-round majority system, in which a single deputy is elected for each of the 577 constituencies and in which the alliances between the other parties block the way for the lepenistas. Le Pen can now aspire to form a parliamentary group (15 deputies), which he did not achieve five years ago, with 10 million votes in the presidential elections, but not much more.
That is why Macron has focused on criticism of Mélenchon and has launched many promises – some already announced before – to improve the purchasing power of the French, such as the extension of fuel subsidies, the revaluation of pensions and measures to fight against inflation, which punishes the most disadvantaged. However, no party has changed its expansive economic discourse, despite runaway inflation, the announced rise in interest rates and the incessant increase in public debt. And even less has Mélenchon’s program, based on the reactivation of consumption, taxes on the richest and the reduction of working hours.
It is difficult for Mélenchon to obtain a majority and force Macron to appoint him prime minister in a cohabitation government. Such a solution would be a setback for France and for the European Union because in Mélenchon’s program, populist, eurosceptic and until recently close to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, contain objectives as far removed from Europeanism as that of failing to comply with community policies when Nupes does not share them. Accepting these approaches, which break with its pro-European tradition, has torn apart the Socialist Party (PS), integrated into Nupes together with La Francia Insumisa, the greens and the communists. The PS has split and some of its leaders present themselves as dissidents.
The possibility that the eurosceptic left could obtain a majority in the National Assembly or prevent Macron from achieving it gives these legislative elections an importance that transcends the French political framework.