In France, President Macron’s gamble on snap parliamentary elections seemingly backfires

After the defeat of his party in the 2024 European Parliament (EP) election, French President Emmanuel Macron called a snap National Assembly election that evening (on 9 June) to mitigate the momentum of the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, who had won more than double the vote of the second-placed pro-Macron list.  

However, his decision seemed to backfire, with the RN and its allies leading after the first ballot of the National Assembly election held on 30 June with slightly more support than they had just won in the EP election, and being on track for a seat majority. But what followed was an effective mobilization of anti-RN parties for the second ballot on 7 July that not only prevented this outcome but saw the RN place third in the number of seats won. Yet the anti-RN electoral alliance did not become a government alliance of the left and centre; instead, the new government of Michel Barnier must rely on the tolerance of the RN to stay in power. In short, the calling of snap parliamentary elections by Macron was a mistake – and one that should have been foreseen.

French presidents have the right to dissolve the National Assembly at will, but no more than once a year (Constitution of France, Article 12). Moreover, the constitutional change of 2008, which made the presidency a five-year term (it had been seven), means that the presidential and (maximum) legislative terms are now the same length. The norm since then is holding the assembly election right after the presidential election. This allows the momentum from the presidential election to carry over into the legislative election, leading for example to Macron’s party winning an outright majority back in the 2017 legislative election. Indeed, scholars call the legislative election the “troisième tour” (third round) of the presidential one. More generally, one can call legislative elections, held right after presidential ones, “confirmatory” versus “competitive” legislative elections held at other times.

Yet legislative elections held after presidential ones do vary in how much “confirmation” is given – an outright majority to the president’s forces or just a plurality. Macron’s problems began with the Ensemble (‘Together’) grouping of pro-Macron parties winning only a plurality not a majority of seats in the 2022 National Assembly election, meaning that it was hard for them to govern. Yet calling a mid-term “competitive” election when he was unpopular was unlikely to work out well for Macron. Nevertheless, he took the gamble.   

For this legislative election, there were in fact four relevant political groupings. Between Ensemble in the centre and the RN on the far right were the traditional Républicains, the heirs to the Gaullists and their successors. Well, most of them anyway – a bloc of Republicans led by then-party president Éric Ciotti chose to ally with the RN. Finally, on the left was the New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, which united the left populist La France Insoumise (LFI) – ‘France Unbowed’, sometimes translated as ‘Indomitable France’, the Communists, the Socialists, and the Greens.

On the first ballot, the RN and its allies led with 33.2 percent of the vote, followed by the NFP with 28.1 percent, Ensemble a distant third with 20.0 percent (down from a razor-thin plurality of 25.8 percent in the 2022 National Assembly election), and the official Republicans with 6.6 percent. Had this been a Canadian election, that is, one using a single-member plurality electoral system, then the RN and its allies would have won an outright majority as they were leading (with a plurality and in some cases an outright majority) in 297 of the 577 seats, followed by the NFP at 157 seats, Ensemble way back at 69, and the Republicans at 33.

But National Assembly elections in the French Fifth Republic use a more complicated electoral system, what is called formally single-member majority-plurality. Unless a candidate wins an absolute majority on the first ballot and at least 25 percent of the constituency electorate, there is a second ballot runoff (ballottage) held a week later. For this runoff a candidate needs only to win a plurality to get elected, and participation is limited to candidates who meet a threshold based on the first ballot constituency results. More crucially though, parties that are allied tend to practice what is known as désistement (withdrawal), in which everyone even if they qualify stands down except for the highest placed candidate on the first ballot to avoid vote splitting.

Thus, even though they were opponents through the first ballot, after this ballot a broad front was established between the NFP and Ensemble (who combined had almost half the first ballot vote) to stop a far-right victory. However, there was not perfect désistement, as centrist leaders were not always supportive of standing down in favour of a candidate from the left populist La France Insoumise. Nor did the Republicans participate directly in the anti-RN alliance, though they benefited from it. Thus, almost all of the 224 candidates who withdrew voluntary did so to stop the RN. So, even though the RN and its allies were leading in (or had already won) 297 seats after the first ballot, in the end they only took 143 seats as the RN could only win just over a quarter of two-candidate runoffs. For its part, Ensemble was able to more than double its share of seats to 168 from the “plurality” electoral system scenario and placed second behind the NFP, which won 182 seats.

Consequently, no bloc won a majority of seats. As the largest parliamentary group, the NFP laid claim to the prime ministership, though it took a while to agree on a joint candidate, civil servant Lucie Castets. However, the French president can appoint anyone as prime minister; the issue is whether they can survive in parliament. Macron said that Castets could not and refused to appoint her. More broadly though, what Macron and his allies wanted was a full front républicain going from the Socialists and the Greens through Ensemble to the Republicans – thus dividing the NFP and more generally marginalizing the political extremes. Macron was successful in the vote for the National Assembly speaker, where the incumbent Yaël Braun-Pivet of Ensemble was re-elected over an NFP-backed Communist candidate on the third, plurality ballot with the votes of the Republicans (who in return received some key positions in the National Assembly). Which parties did – or did not – ally with Macron’s forces for the second ballot of the election was apparently not central in this vote, a harbinger of the new government.

As for appointing a new prime minister, Macron was in no rush to do this, waiting until after the Paris Olympics. Initially, the front-runner was Bernard Cazeneuve, the last prime minister of Macron’s predecessor as president, Socialist François Hollande. Cazeneuve had quit the Socialist Party in 2022 over its alliance with LFI, and thus his appointment would have been an acknowledgement of the left’s success while still fitting with Macron’s wishes to divide the left.  However, policy-wise, Macron hoped that a new government would not undo his (unpopular) pension reform. Cazeneuve’s wish to repeal this reform doubtless proved a deal-breaker.  Moreover, his own Socialists offered no support to him. Unable to divide LFI and draw in its more moderate elements, Macron then needed a government which the RN would at least tolerate, as ironically they were now in the kingmaker position. The effective veto of Marine Le Pen thus eliminated certain technocratic and conservative candidates.

In the end, Macron appointed as prime minister Michel Barnier of the Republicans, best known internationally as the European Union’s negotiator for Brexit. The RN was pleased because Barnier was, in Marine Le Pen’s words, “someone who is respectful of the different political forces” (including them). In contrast, the left saw Barnier as lacking any legitimacy.

Nevertheless, Barnier has broad public approval (57 percent), greater than any other French politician, due in part to his serious style. He presented his government to Macron two weeks later, a coalition of Macron’s centrists and Republicans – and one without an actual coalition agreement. This minority coalition of two blocs, is hardly a typical French government. It also contains one ex-Socialist MP in the senior position of minister of justice. Obviously, that is not enough to keep the left from being totally opposed to it. Indeed, the NFP has already moved a motion of non-confidence, on 8 October. This motion failed, as the RN abstained.

Barnier’s first major test will be passing a difficult budget. Indeed, the new Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry, Antoine Armand, noted recently that France is contending with “one of the worst” financial deficits in modern history. The most current estimate from the Ministry of Finance is that it will reach 6.1 percent of GDP this year, double the limit set by the European Union. In his general policy statement, Barnier said that in order to get the budget deficit down to 3.0 percent before 2029 (and that new target is two years later than previously planned), two-thirds of the reduction will come from spending cuts and one-third from tax increases – and those tax hikes will be on the most profitable large firms and the wealthiest individuals.

That said, it is quite likely that the RN will tolerate this government for a little while anyway, if only to get some policy concessions especially on immigration and security matters, and to look responsible rather than chaotic to French voters.