European Central: Macron Faces Challenges From Far Left
Chesnot
President Macron went against a 20-year trend and was inaugurated as the first French president to be reelected since 2002, a feat that has not been accomplished since Jacques Chirac. However, Macron cannot breathe a sigh of relief just yet. In case you did not notice, only the French president was elected in April. In June French voters will once again have two rounds of elections on June 12th and 19th but this time for members of the National Assembly, the lower house of France’s bicameral French Parliament. This election will determine whether or not Macron will be able to attempt to follow through with his campaign promises, or if he will be forced into cohabitation with a rival Prime Minister. There is a good chance that his party renamed Renaissance will be successful, but this is not definite. Macron of course will face competition from Le Pen and Melenchon.
Le Pen’s party typically does not do well in legislative elections making it unlikely Rassemblement National (National Rally) will receive more votes than Macron’s Renaissance party. However, Macron may face a larger threat from the left as Melenchon has successfully constructed a coalition of four parties; his La France insoumise party (France Unbowed), Les Verts (The Greens), Parti socialiste (Socialist Party), and Parti communiste français (The French Communist Party). All four parties have agreed to not have candidates run against each other for specific seats. This is significant as the coalition will prevent splitting the vote amongst left-wing candidates allowing the one candidate to be more likely to win. In France, the election of the National Assembly is designed to encourage a plurality of parties. A candidate will only win the first round if they win a majority of votes and the number of votes is equal to at least 25 percent of eligible voters in the constituency they are running. If no candidate in a constituency meets these requirements in the first round then all candidates who received at least 12.5 percent of the votes advance to the second round. In this round whoever wins the highest percentage of votes wins even if it is not above 50 percent.
Some are concerned about Melenchon becoming prime minister because of his beliefs. While Le Pen is well-known to be a Eurosceptic, so is Melenchon. Melenchon plans on ignoring some EU rules, raising red flags for France’s Europe Minister, Clément Beaune. In particular, the left-wing coalition wants to ignore EU rules regarding national budgets. In the European Union, nations cannot exceed an annual fiscal deficit equal to 3 percent of their GDP and the total government debt should be below 60 percent of their GDP. below In 2017, Melenchon hinted that he would consider the idea of leaving the EU if the bloc tried to prevent France from increasing public spending. Melenchon is currently pushing for raising the minimum wage by 100 euros a month and decreasing the retirement age to the age of 60 instead of raising it like Macron. EDF and ENGIE, France’s electrical and gas companies would also be nationalized. Adrien Quatennens, a senior member of La France Insoumise is confident that France will be able to leverage the size of its economy when negotiating with the EU compared to Greece since France is responsible for 18 percent of the EU’s GDP meanwhile Greece produces only 2 percent.
On the other side, Les Républicains are debating whether or not to join forces with Macron. The party received only 4.8 percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. Les Républicains fairs well as a political party in local elections but this has not translated to success at the national level recently as local and national politics appear to be diverging within France. Party leaders have engaged in mudslinging on social media over whether or not they should form a coalition with Macron. Daniel Fasquelle, the treasurer for Les Républicains believes that working with Macron can allow the party to have a say in decisions rather than simply accepting what Macron decides alone. Aurélien Pradié, Secretary-General of the party tweeted “If @DFasquelle has got a little bit of energy left, he should become treasurer of the committee for sucking up to Emmanuel Macron.”
If Macron has his way and his party wins a majority in the National Assembly, then France will definitely remain a loyal member of the EU and seek to help lead the Bloc. The retirement age would also increase by 3 years from 62 to 65 years old. Macron wants to continue investing in nuclear energy and sees it as a clean energy solution to help combat climate challenges along with the EU decreasing its dependency on Russian energy due to the invasion of Ukraine. At the EU level, Macron wants to improve the Schengen Area by reinforcing the bloc’s external borders. The current process for asylum applications would be revamped in order to help reach decisions quicker. France is also destined to stay in NATO and Macron increased military spending to the bloc’s requirement of 2 percent in order to show his dedication and faith in the organization.
Macron has a fight ahead of him for his party and a majority in the national assembly, particularly has it is clear that Macron wants to be a leader within the European Union. Due to Merkel’s departure from politics after 15 years as the German Chancellor, this is Macron’s best chance to fill the void. Chancellor Scholz is struggling with Germany’s dependency on Russian Energy and is constantly having to change decisions based on pushback from Eastern EU member states that support Ukraine. At the same time, this election is proof that pro-EU politicians can face threats from not only right-wing political parties but from the left, as well as candidates, who are Eurosceptic for different reasons. National governments have been able to keep Eurosceptic parties out of government before, but this was when a party won from primarily one side of the political spectrum. If this changes and Eurosceptic parties from both sides win over a large number of voters, parties committed to the EU such as Macron’s may be left in the minority. This may not happen during the election in June but instead happen in 2027 when Macron cannot run for a third term as French President.
