France’s president will be halved for his second term, and voters will deprive him of the most important tool of his power – parliament and the absolute governing majority. This is a blow for Emmanuel Macron, and an unexpected one at that. The parliamentary elections became a tool of punishment for the unloved man at the top. Now he begins the second period tied to a vacillating majority that wants to be re-acquired each time. The conservative camp will pay dearly for the toleration.
For 20 years, the French system had been spared its greatest dysfunction – “cohabitation”. From a technical point of view, this split majority system does not exist this time either. In principle, the country could also be governed with a president and a prime minister from opposing camps. Three times it worked more poorly than right.
But 2022 is not 2002, extremism has taken over the country in the last 20 years, the right-wing extremists are mirrored by no less radical forces from the left: against Europe, against the partnership with Germany, against NATO. The French vote against parties, they no longer have any idea what they actually want to stand for. Now the bourgeois camp has to stand together to ward off extremism in parliament.
Macron will be able to tame these forces a little with the authority of his office. The constitution also gives him sufficient leeway for foreign policy decisions. But that’s a lousy prospect. France needs an internal deradicalization program, no putsch parliament and no substitute king in the Élysée.
The tolerated Macronists will only promote radicalism in the electorate with their attempt at a bourgeois coalition – anything but usual in France. So the left may triumph a bit this Sunday, but Marine Le Pen can be happy.