The election, two months after the legislative elections, of Michel BarnierConservative, as Prime Minister of the French Republic, rebelled against the New Popular Front, the coalition of far-left populist parties that won the most seats at the polls, 193 out of 577, but far from the absolute majority of 289.
The dilemma of Emmanuel Macron It was not easy to solve. Because the New Popular Front won the elections, among other reasons, only thanks to the alliance with the party eI The presidential bloc, formed by several centre-right parties, has cornered the Reagrupamiento Nacional, the party of Marine Le Pen And Jordan Bardellaand left it at 126 seats.
The New Popular Front, formed among others by La Francia Insumisa, Los Ecologistas, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party, now feels betrayed by Macron, who has the power to appoint the Prime Minister as President of the Republic and who has opted for a well-known right-wing figure instead of Lucie Castetsthe name desired by the populist coalition.
The truth is that the New Popular Front won the elections only thanks to its alliance with the presidential bloc and the sum of deputies obtained by all its parties. But the party that obtained the most votes was the National Grouping, with 126 seats, to which must then be added the 17 of Los Republicanos, Michel Barnier’s party.
The New Popular Front therefore does not have enough strength or seats to impose a Prime Minister or to censure him, something for which he would need the votes of Marine Le Pen’s party and Jordan Bardella.
Macron has thus made a “reverse Sánchez”. In other words, he has built an unstable majority against the party that won the elections, breaking with the tradition according to which the Prime Minister belongs, under normal conditions, to the party that wins the elections.
The move buys Macron time, although it is difficult to predict how long his peace of mind will last. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has already accused Macron of “stealing” the elections. Olivier Faureleader of a Socialist Party now practically marginal in France, declared that the country was entering “a crisis of the regime”.
Governance now rests in the hands of the National Group. Marine Le Pen has been cautious, even though she thanked Macron for choosing a candidate who was “respectful” of the rest of the parties in the National Assembly. One of her conditions for not overthrowing the Prime Minister at the first opportunity was that he not treat the National Group like a party in the grip of the plague, but, in the worst case scenario, with the same consideration that he gives to the New Popular Front, its mirror on the left.
This Saturday, France will see the first demonstration against Barnier. This will be the start of an extraordinarily complicated legislature. by the division of France into three blocs with very similar representation: that of the extreme left, that of the extreme right and that of the liberal centre-right.
With the early call for legislative elections, under pressure from a minority government and the poor results of the European elections, Macron intended to carry out a coup d’état similar to that of Sánchez in 2023. And the result obtained was precisely the same. obtained Sánchez in Spain. The paradox is inescapable.
