June 9 was the worst moment of French President Emmanuel Macron's political career. Or so many thought. His political grouping, Renew Europe, was dealt a devastating result at the polls. And even worse—Marine Le Pen, his political rival and head of the far-right National Rally, came out the winner. French voters gave Le Pen's party more than 31 percent of the vote; Macron's, meanwhile, scraped by with less than 14 percent. The entire affair was a humbling experience for Macron, a guy who hasn't really done anything but win since he was elevated to the French presidency in 2017.
The European Parliament elections, however, were a low-stakes affair compared to the first round of French legislative elections that took place over the weekend. If Macron thought dissolving the French National Assembly immediately after the EU elections and daring French voters to bring the far-right into power would scare them straight, it backfired in spectacular fashion. With a single decision, Macron exposed himself as everything his political opponents have claimed he is—arrogant, aloof, and grossly naïve about what ordinary French want.
June 9 is no longer Macron's worst day. That honor now goes to June 30, when it became clear very early on that the French president's centrist candidates would be losing a lot of their vote share in the assembly. As an editorial in the French daily Le Monde expressed so poignantly, "It was Macronism, in its essence, that self-dissolved on Sunday." Le Pen's National Rally nearly doubled its vote from 18.68 percent in 2022, to roughly 33 percent today. A leftist coalition came in second, with about 28 percent. Macron's centrist Renaissance Party, however, was a distant third at 20 percent. These results were compounded by the fact that Nationally Rally expanded into constituencies—the cities, educated professionals, people under 35, wealthy voters—that would normally shy away from the party.
Granted, we don't yet know what the French National Assembly will look like. We have another round of voting on July 7.
What we do know, however, is that the makeup of the French Parliament will look a whole lot of different next week than it did weeks ago. Le Pen, with the assistance of her 28 year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, has managed to do what many thought was impossible—turn the National Rally from a xenophobic, antisemitic, uber-nationalist bunch of misfits into a what can now be called a mainstream political coalition. For Macron as well as his predecessors, this is downright dangerous. And yet it's one that came about due to the French president's decision to dissolve the current parliament and place his bets on another election despite the fact that all of his political allies thought it was stupid and reckless.
The question now is how much France will change. This depends in large part on the results in a few days. If National Rally manages to attain a majority, Macron will in essence be a lame duck president for the next three years. It's exceedingly difficult to envision Macron collaborating with a prime minister like Bardella, who is so different ideologically from the French president's pro-European Union, pro-NATO sensibilities. France has had presidents and prime ministers of different parties before, but nothing to this extent, where the two top figures are so distinct on the very foundations of French policy. The situation would be just a little bit more bearable if the Parliament was split between different pluralities, in which case passing anything noteworthy domestically would be about as easy as swimming a few miles upstream.
What about France's foreign policy? This, too, depends on the final results. But Macron can rest a little bit easier by the fact that, traditionally speaking, the French president is the dominant actor on what Paris chooses to do (or not) in the world. The French Constitution names the president the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, gives him the power to appoint ambassadors, and if worse comes to worse, the power to dispatch the French military during an international emergency. Macron will remain the face of French foreign policy and will represent France in all of the big international security and economic conferences that take place—including the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, D.C., this month.
For Macron, this doesn't mean his power is absolute. The French Constitution, somewhat ambiguously, also says the prime minister "shall be responsible for national defense." The prime minister is also in charge of the government and the implementation of any legislation passed through the Assembly. This could cause lots of problems for Macron during budget season, particularly on issues like the war in Ukraine. Sending weapons to the Ukrainian army and perhaps even deploying French advisers to Ukraine, as Macron has flirted with recently, costs money. The purse strings will be controlled, at least in part, by a National Rally Party whose leader, Marine Le Pen, has never been fond of the war and has said positive things in the past about Russian President Vladimir Putin. Before the first round of voting, Le Pen stated outright that, should her partner Bardella form the next government, he would prevent Macron from sending any troops to Ukraine.
France is in for a rough few years. Macron, even more so.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
