Roundly rebuking his neo-liberal globalist political philosophy, the French public has refused to grant President Emmanuel Macron a parliamentary majority as Marine Le Pen’s populists on the right and an ecological alliance on the left surged at the ballot box to strip the once self-described ‘Jupitarean’He is a leader in France’s ability to govern it firmly.
Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble and his Ensemble have been in power for just two months, less than one month after he was elected President of France. Coalition suffered a devastating result in the last round of voting in parliamentary elections. On Sunday, they secured only 245 seats. This is far less than the 289 required to retain a governing majority.
The night’s true victor — at least in terms of exceeding expectations — was perhaps Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), which saw a surprising result of 89 candidates elected to the National Assembly, the most in the history of the party, including its predecessor National Front. Le Pen’s party, which previously only boasted eight representatives, will now have enough representation to form a parliamentary group, providing a major boost to the party in terms of prominence in the national discussion and the ability to fundraise.
Posters had predicted that RN would win 25 to 45 seats in Sunday’s second round. This suggests that anti-Macron sentiment was powerful enough to persuade left-leaning voters to support Le Pen and stop the neoliberal President from retaining control of the parliament.
She praised the remarkable result of her party and the popist firebrand said: “This victory is that of the French people. Tonight, they have taken their destiny into their own hands by making Emmanuel Macron a minority president. This victory is yours!”
The French interior ministry said that Macron would lead the biggest party in France’s Parliament. However, he will not have an overall majority of 245 seats. Hard-left NUPES, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (New popular ecological & social union), won 131 seats. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally outperformed expectations to take 89 seats. Republicans, former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s establishment party, finished fourth, with just 61% of the seats. In fact, just 15 year ago they had won 313.
Sea-Change: Le Pen Wins Big Among Working Class, Big Share of Millennial Vote https://t.co/EE7VoNX6Ho
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 25, 2022
Nigel Farage (Brexit leader) comments via the English Channel said: “A big night for Marine Le Pen. The dam will break in the end,” referencing the potential for populists to finally gain control of the Élysée Palace and win the French presidency.
National Rally’s huge defeat at the parliamentary level is due to the party capturing the largest percentage of votes in its history. In April, Le Pen was awarded 41.5 per cent. The vote was a close victory for Macron but RN also saw gains in younger millennial voters. They also won the working-class vote. These results could signal a possible downfall of Macron’s centrist consensus.
WATCH: Farage Says Le Pen ‘Far From Finished’The Globalist Status Quo ‘Is Going to Break’https://t.co/HesXPDRfGE
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 26, 2022
Macron, who had portrayed himself as an akin leader to Jupiter in the Roman Gods of Rome and promised that his presidency would unify France through doing so in 2017, had not yet been able to deny this. “everything in the five years to come so there is no more reason to vote for the extremes,” he has apparently failed on this front, with the socialist NUPES coalitionHeaded by far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon winning 131 seats, making the hard left the largest opposition voting bloc in the parliament, should the group of socialists, communists, and greens maintain a unified front… something which could prove difficult for Mélenchon.
Celebrating his far-left coalition’s success in preventing Macron from securing a majority, Mélenchon said: “The great upsurge of history, of the France of rebellions and revolutions, has a face. That of NUPES. Not for a moment do we give up on the ambition to govern and bring the country to another horizon.”
“These challenges that are coming, we will meet them with a strength that we did not have. We beat Macron. He does not have the majority,” he added.
Jean-Luc Melenchon is the leader of France Unbowed. Photographer: Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Going forward, it will now be much more difficult for President Macron to enact the agenda on which he stood for re-election, including reforming the country’s pension system, a move that would increase the age of retirement and his stated goal of cutting taxes, as he will likely be needed in Paris to focus on waging wars on the domestic front, forging alliances in the National Assembly if he has any chance of passing his agenda items. Macron might need to move to the right to get legislation passed.
Macron might be besieged once again by the angry and emboldened Gilet Jaunes (Yellow Vests) on Paris streets amid the rising cost of living crisis on Europe and the revival of populism to the right and left in France.
Alert or threat Macron Predicts ‘Disorder’ if he Doesn’t Win Upcoming Electionhttps://t.co/yHxkA2enN7
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 15, 2022
Macron’s global standing may decline due to the loss of his parliamentary majority. It remains to be seen if Macron can retain a majority of the governing party, and how successful he will become Europe’s premier leader.
Upon the retirement of Angela Merkel in Germany and the subsequent elevation of Social Democrat (SPD) Olaf Scholz as chancellor — who is the head of a somewhat precarious “traffic light” coalition government including the Greens and the centrist-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) — the mantle of head honcho in the European Union appeared to be within grasp for Macron. Yet, Sunday’s results may throw such a vision in doubt.
As Britain’s state broadcaster the BBC put it in their analysis of the result on Monday morning, noting: “The results of Sunday’s legislative election confirm that this second term will be a different beast from the first, with Mr Macron cutting the figure of a chastened and greatly weakened leader.”
A decrease in Macron’s prominence on the international stage may have an effect on the future course of the Ukraine conflict. Macron, the French president, had previously attempted to be a mediator, and was one of few European leaders who held talks with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, to try to reach a peaceful solution.
It is interesting to note that the European Land War has seen the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson become the chief ally to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s President. He took a more conservative stance than those in Europe, who are more dependent upon Russia for their energy imports.
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