Elections in France: crucial test for Emmanuel Macron in Parliament

France votes this Sunday in the first round of legislative elections, where President Emmanuel Macron plays his parliamentary majority and his government program.

Without it and in the face of the advance of the left gathered in Nupes, it could end up – after the runoff on June 19 – in coexistence in the government. The ultra-radical leader of the new alliance, Jean Luc Mélenchon intends to establish himself as Prime Ministereven if he is not a candidate for the position of deputy.

Disturbing choices and with abstention as a probable protagonist: At least 46 percent of abstentionists are expected.

If the French elect 289 deputies from the presidential majority of “Ensemble”, the government of Emmanuel Macron will be able to carry out its programs to change the retirement age, the refoundation of the country and the great reforms of the state it has promised.

Worried in recent weeks, Macron asked to “choose the path of consistency and trust in the voters”. But if you have a relative majority, i.e. fewer than 289 seats, he must be forced to make alliances in the precincts of the National Assembly to draft their laws. The strategy could be on a case-by-case basis or general agreement.

Coexistence with Nupes, the left alliance with Mélenchon of Unsubmissive France, the communists, the environmentalists, part of the socialists, is the nightmare scenario for President Macron.

But if you look at the polls, that’s the most likely scenario. But Nupes will have to have at least 289 deputies. In this case Macron will not be able to carry out his reforms.

“Third presidential round”

Jean Luc Mélenchon is turning these legislative elections into the third presidential round and is promoting himself as a future prime minister. If a majority is obtained, Article 20 of the Constitution states that “the prime minister, born from the majority group, is the one who determines the politics of the nation ”.

A poll by Ipsos Sopra Steria at the end of Friday assigned between 260 and 300 seats in the presidential coalition against 215 in the left union.

The prime minister can resort to a constitutional remedy in case of loss of the majority. Article 49.3 allows legislative texts to be adopted without the vote of the National Assembly. But it undermines the government’s accountability to her. If the assembly imposes a vote of no confidence and loses it, the premier must resign before the President of the Republic.

Macron is holding a weapon of mass destruction: it can dissolve the National Assembly and call new legislative elections, as Jacques Chirac did in 1997.

Closing campaign

In Caen, in the middle of Normandy, 200 kilometers from Paris and close to the English Channel, Mélenchon (70) began to close his campaign before leaving for the south.

Six weeks after Macron’s presidential re-election with 59 percent and the Ni de Mélenchon vote, the new leader of Nupes attacked the president in the Caen congress center. Young people, entrepreneurs and the elderly applauded him.

“The country is tired of its presidential monarchs. If the French people decide to give us a majority, then we govern. Destiny is in your hands ”, Mélenchon harangued at the congress center of this Norman city. But he managed to excite the young and old of the working class, who voted for communism.

Calvados, in Normandy, is the home of Elizabeth Borne, a socialist technocrat and former minister, currently Macron’s prime minister. You have to win your constituency if you want to stay that way. Polls don’t favor it. That is why Mélenchon has stepped up its campaign in the region near the French capital.

Unexpectedly, the Nupes alliance became a danger to the “Macronia”, who realized the threat late and took them by surprise. The left-wing coalition was the construction of Mélenchon: he announced it on the evening of the presidential elections, transforming his appointment as prime minister into a real third round of elections.

The position of the socialists

But Mélenchon’s populist ideas do not excite moderate socialists, including former president François Hollande, on his honeymoon. They will not vote for it.

Hollande and his former ministers refuse to support the agreement that the general secretary of the socialist party, Olivier Faure, made with Mélenchon. The PS “elephant” was with Mélenchon in Caen, when there is his party on the verge of extinction.

“First they warned me that he ate the boys raw. I had seen it as dictatorial. Then I realized that we speak the same language ”, explained Faure in Caen. But not all socialist affiliates agree on their conversion.

Disinterest in polls

France has no interest in voting again. With the high cost of living, astronomical inflation, rising fuel prices, forced change in consumption habits, the population is indifferent to these laws.

“Are you Argentine? Do you know if Pochettino will leave and Zidane will be the manager of PSG? ” Mélenchon and Macron have asked this correspondent over and over again, in various cafes in Paris, questioned about the election. Nobody was interested in the legislative elections. Most of the respondents had no intention of voting in the first round.

Jean Luc Mélenchon greeted Marseille on Friday evening, of which he has so far been deputy. Great speaker, with a sense of humor and acidity, the “tribune of the republic” admitted: “It gives me something to know that this is the last time I come as a deputy. But I warn you: I will be prime minister.” And he called Macron “Your Honor”.

The populist and pro-Chavist Mélenchon was minister of higher education for the socialists, then a European deputy and after Marseille for France Insumisa, his party. He has decided not to show up this time to put the alliance together.

If he is elected prime minister, it will be the first time that someone will arrive at Palazzo Matignon without a deputy mandate. But legal specialists believe Macron will have to appoint him if his party gets a majority.

“Macron was not legitimately elected. Most people didn’t like it. They voted against Le Pen ”, Mélenchon diagnosed.

forced coexistence

Leader Nupes has experience in coexistence. Mélenchon served for two decades as a minister in the socialist cabinet, when the president was the conservative Jacques Chirac. He assures that Macron “has no other alternative”. Recall that two of Macron’s three prime ministers have never been deputies.

“Are you telling me that if we win, you will elect a prime minister on your side?” Mélenchon questioned Macron.

The president believes he can appoint the premier he wants and also another of the alleged new majority, in addition to Mélenchon. He describes Nupes’ proposals as “a completely self-destructive leftist fantasy”.

“I read the Nupes manifesto. They mention the word tax 20 times and the word “forbid” 30 times. A monument to freedom “She mocked him.

He asked to support his Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne in Calvados, who has spent her career in the Socialist Party and promises more social justice.

Pension reforms can help define choice: Macron promises reform to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65. Mélenchon wants to go back to the age of 60, raise taxes and create 14 different tax bands.

Bad prospects for Marine Le Pen

In these legislative elections, Marine Le Pen will be overshadowed by Mélenchon, according to polls. Nupes would get 28%, Macron Ensemble 27%, Le Pen National Rally 19.5%, Republican conservatives 11% and Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, the 6%.

Provided you keep in mind that, on a regular basis, polls in France turn out to be a fiasco.

The campaign is compared to that of 1988, which was also a re-election. President François Mitterrand was re-elected, but with a small majority. Its Prime Minister Michel Rocard was forced to negotiate every vote in Parliament outside of his party. Everything indicates that Macron may have the same future.

Paris and Caen, correspondent

CB