Emmanuel Macron wants to see the left die

A few hours ago, Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly following the French result in the European elections1¹. A part of me doesn’t understand this decision, and the other is afraid of understanding it too well…

No power at European level

Let’s start with the reality of the impact: the far-right group in the European Parliament is ridiculous.

Even with 30 more seats, the Identity group remains very small (barely 8% of the seats), far behind the 180+ EPPs (European Populist Party) and the 130 Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

The activity of RN elected representatives is negligible, with very few proposals. Jordan Bardella signed 21 amendments between 2019 and 2024, compared with several hundred, if not thousands, for Manon Aubry or François-Xavier Bellamy. He is not the rapporteur for any text, compared with three for the ecologist MEP Marie Toussaint.

It’s not just the RN’s fault: the other groups are applying a kind of sanitary cordon and blocking the identity group’s room for manoeuvre (and in my opinion, that’s a good thing). The RN politician is making his presence felt to avoid a new trial for fictitious employment, Marine Le Pen having just reimbursed €300k to the Parliament…

La montée de l’extrême-droite au niveau européen est un sujet de débat mais c’est une montée lente, par un raz-de-marée.

The rise of the far right at European level is a subject of debate, but it is a slow rise, not a tidal wave.

So why is Macron acting as he is? What is the urgency?

Strengthening a two-party system

Creating a republican shield to counter the far right is not the same as creating a situation of opposition to the far right in order to create a republican front revolving around you.

First of all, when you want to create a bastion against a political opponent, you don’t borrow half his proposals. You don’t propose legislation on the basis of a majority that includes the RN.

But on a deadline like a dissolution, if you want to build a wall, you give it the means to exist, including by giving it time to be built.

By choosing such a short deadline for the dissolution (the vote will take place in 20 days’ time, i.e. the minimum amount of time possible), Emmanuel Macron is banking on the inability of the left to reach agreement, at a time when the opposition parties are exhausted by a difficult European election campaign and have neither the time nor the energy to establish programmatic agreements on national issues. Besides, the coffers are empty: even the parties that obtained more than 3% in the European elections will only be reimbursed in a few weeks, or even months.

We are therefore heading for a second round in which, in many constituencies, the presidential party will face the Rassemblement National, and Emmanuel Macron knows that in this configuration, all democrats will do their duty and “make block”.

In constituencies where an RN candidate will face someone from a party other than Renaissance, voting instructions will be given on a case-by-case basis, depending on the person’s alleged compatibility with the Republic (a highly subjective qualification, which implies that someone could be less compatible with the Republic than the Rassemblement National). In reality, Renaissance will be choosing who will be most likely to vote in favour of future government bills.

Of course, it will work. And we will be entitled to a speech in the same vein as “this vote obliges me”, as quickly uttered as forgotten, and Emmanuel Macron will then consider this vote of opposition to the RN as a vote of support.

But that’s not all. It reinforces, once again, the two-party system that Emmanuel Macron is so keen to see. On the one hand, the democrats, whom he claims as his own, and on the other, a reactionary right-wing party that he has chosen as his adversary. And the left? Let it disappear.

The real objective: to destroy the left

Emmanuel Macron has already taken this extremely risky gamble, and he has always won. He began by absorbing the forces of the right and the right of the left, but that was not enough. A hero is only as good as his nemesis. And that nemesis is the far right.

This narrative construction has enabled it to gradually integrate all the socialists and democrats (including those on the right) into politics, and has seen a major reconfiguration of the landscape on the right, with the Les Républicains party sliding towards the extremes to the point of being hard to distinguish from them, and the emergence of a multi-faceted identity bloc (the Rassemblement National, Reconquête…).

This non-spoken coalition, which Emmanuel Macron regularly reinforces with a host of social disruptions (always a godsend for populists), virilist rhetoric and xenophobic bills, allows him to use democracy to remain at the head of a country that he then rules in a highly undemocratic manner, using 49.3.

Some people wonder whether Macron wants to put the far right into power to prove that it is incapable of governing, while others disagree. For me, it’s not a question of “if”, it’s “when”.

By building up a ‘democratic’ bloc against a ‘reactionary’ bloc from the start of its political history, he is seeking to create an American-style two-party system. With one obvious consequence: at some point, when people are fed up with A, they will vote for B. And that’s what we’re starting to see, with record turnouts.

In the end, Emmanuel Macron’s real enemy, the political current that does not exist in this political vision, is the left, and more particularly the social and ecological left, the only one to oppose capital, which has no enemies on the right (however far to the right you go).

A Nupes hope?

The Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale (Nupes) is a coalition of French left-wing political parties formed in 2022 on the eve of the last legislative elections. It is a union of circumstance, the aim of which is to put in place single candidates in the majority of constituencies. The incumbents will be retained, regardless of their track record, and for the other constituencies, the parties’ results in previous elections will be used to decide who to field.

It’s a necessity, because no matter what you think of this or that left-wing candidate, on the whole, they are democrats. Yes, there are people on the left who discriminate, there are sexual abusers, charlatans, populist influencers and ecociders. But if you know this, it’s because information is circulating. It’s because there are investigations. It’s because there are internal processes and a permeability to journalistic work to enable this transparency, unparalleled on the right and the far right. We don’t see problems because they exist, we see them because the law of silence is not as strong there.

Obviously, we on the left should be cleaning up our act more quickly. Frankly, it hurts me to be a left-wing activist knowing that some politicians, who we know are highly problematic, are up for a new job. Can we wait until we’ve cleaned house before putting the left back in power? I doubt it.

Whether it’s via Emmanuel Macron or the RN, the far right is getting more entrenched every day and the doors are closing from election to election. When we finally have our ideal left in hand, we won’t be allowed to vote for it.

And if the left “wins”?

So let’s be honest for a minute. “Winning”, in this context, will be bettersweet.

Since 2022, in the National Assembly, we have:

~90 RN
~60 LR
~250 Renaissance (presidential party)
~30 LIOT/non-attached members
and ~150 Nupes

Knowing that ~290 MPs are needed for an absolute majority, the left is currently not a sufficient force to defend a text. Even if we add Liot and the Non-attached Members.

For the left to really “win” these elections, i.e. to become a real reservoir of votes for the presidential party, many constituencies would have to be convinced that the left is a better alternative than remaining loyal to Renaissance or voting RN. I’d like to see that happen, but in view of what’s just happened in the European elections, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

What is at stake here is the survival of the left, with a RN group that could potentially double in size and constitute the largest pool of votes for passing legislation.

What will the Rassemblement National do?

For the moment, RN MPs have little say in the drafting of the law. On the other hand, their votes are real and should logically be increasingly powerful².

On wages and living standards, the RN is making the French poorer by voting:

against increases in the minimum wage, civil servants’ pay and housing benefit
for the tightening of all unemployment conditions (end of rights after giving up a job, tightening and abolition of benefits)
against indexation of wages (on the cost of living)
against freezing rents or freezing the price of basic necessities
against free school meals and supplies
against increasing student grants (despite supposedly meritocratic values)

The RN supports the order of capital and high wages, voting:

against wage controls
against the wealth tax
against the abolition of public subsidies for companies that pay dividends without increasing their workforce
against the fight against tax fraud
in favour of video surveillance

And as a result, the RN votes for anything that weakens and privatises public services:

against funding for universities, hospitals, fire brigades, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office or court clerks ( you betcha…)
against lowering VAT on public transport
for the abolition of the audiovisual licence fee, leading to a radical overhaul of public broadcasting at a time when it has never been so successful

Finally, the RN is the enemy of social responsibility and ecological transition, voting:

against the conditioning of public aid to companies complying with ecological constraints
against regulating the installation of doctors in areas where there are already enough of them
against gender equality measures such as increasing women’s access to positions of responsibility in the civil service
against the vegetarian option in canteens (even though it would reduce costs for all children)
against abolishing the niche tax on aviation fuel
against a climate wealth tax
against taxing yachts and private jets
against the obligation for companies financed by the France 2030 plan to publish a carbon balance sheet
for the exclusion of kitchen utensils from the ban on eternal pollutants (PFAS)
against combating sectarian organisations
for oil-fired heating, for limiting the use of wind turbines, including in the open sea, and against the compulsory installation of solar panels on large car parks;
and against all forms of inclusive writing.

Finally, during the debate on the pension reform, their opposition was superficial. They applauded the conclusion and even though in their programme they propose retirement at 62, it is under the guise of drastic conditions. When it came to the vote on the revaluation of small pensions, they voted… against.

Regularly asked what they would do with the reform, they announce that they would go back on it… well, if France’s debt level allows it (hint: once in power, they’ll say they won’t).

Paradoxically, the RN is not proposing anything to improve the level of education, which is directly correlated with income and therefore future pensions. Marine Le Pen has repeatedly insisted that young people should enter the market more quickly, which would automatically reduce the costs of public higher education. It’s a constant for the far right all over the world: they don’t fund institutions likely to train opponents.

So what’s in store for us isn’t exactly glorious: more inequality, dismantled public services, a debt that keeps growing because of a lack of investment in long-term projects like the ecological transition, and at the next elections, once again, the choice between the plague and the cholera.

There’s only one solution: vote for the left, now and sustainably.

In France, the Rassemblement National (far-right) came out on top with 31.37% (30 seats), followed by the presidential party (liberals) with 14.60% (13 seats), the socialists (social-democrats) with 13.83% (also 13 seats) and then the Insoumis (lef) with 9.89% (9 seats). ↩
All data are available on datan.fr which itself links to the National Assembly website. ↩