After a depressing first round the relief of the second round elections here in France is overwhelming. A strong sense of disaster averted was my first thought this morning.
Marine Le Pen”s remodelled all new and shiny Rassemblement National (RN), nothing to do with her father’s collection of old Petainist and Algerian colonials of the Front National, has failed to rally the nation. Apart from a dissident handful of Republicans, including the Party’s President Eric Ciotti; the RN failed to make any inroads into what is left post Sarkozy of the traditional republican tight wing vote.
The two round system, whereby you vote for who you like in the first round and against who you dislike most in the second round delivered enough votes to keep the RN results down from the gushy optimism of the first round commentators. The New Front Popular,(NFP) the defensive alliance of Socialists, Greens, Communists, Trots and the largest component Melechon’s LFI, France unbowed, took the principled of withdrawing all it’s 200 third placed candidates in the first round,the centrist and right were not so disciplined but enough saw the logic of the difference between a political adversary and an enemy of the Republic, as one put it, to stand down leaving a clear two way contest. Just as importantly enough left wing voters held their noses and voted for the best candidate to defeat the RN,and, despite the mutterings of the centre and right Party leaders, enough centrist voters did the same.
So today we have an Assemble National with the four Party’s of the NFP as the single largest block, Marcon’s Ensemble, the second and an enlarged RN group the third. No matter how you do the figures none of the three can form a majority to form a stable government. By tradition the ¨President should invite the leaders of the largest group to try and form a government, Whether Macron will or not remains to be seen. My feeling is that some sort of technocratic government trying to stitch together votes policy by policy will stagger through to the next Presidential election but watch thus space. What is clear is that Macrons idea of a silent but mobilisable centrist majority was an illusion, and his risk of calling an election at the start of the simmer holidays has fallen its face leaving the country with no clear leadership.
Politically and socially France s a mess, it was before the elections, and the results do little to help the problems.
Geographically, roughly speaking, the Mediterranean South save the university cities, and the Strip alongside the Rhone River voted RN along with the ex Industrial areas of the North, the mountains and urban working class areas voted Left and the West of the country voted centrist
The geographical spread also indicates conflicting agendas within both the extreme right and left camps. The RN voting retired Algerian colonist in Perpignan has very different priorities to the young RN voting lad in Lille. Equally the left voting organic farmer from the Ariege has a completely different world view and concerns to the Muslim nurse in St Denis.
The cost of living, state of the health service, indeed most public services, the cost of and availability of education, decent jobs, and a sense of security are all of major concern for voters and non voters like. The Left centred a lot of their policy proposals around state intervention to address these issues costed out by a return of the wealth tax, abolished by Macron, and a windfall tax on large corporation. The extreme right proposed a variety of contradictory ideas centred around reducing diesel costs and deporting migrants ,the answers depended on which RN candidate was asked. The centrists simply said weren’t the problems terrible as if they were a result of some natural calamity which has nothing to do with them.
The age or retirement is a high profile issue, with Macron trying, and failing to push through extending after being met with a huge trade union lead protest. The RN leader, Jordon Bardella, changed his position four times in four consecutive interviews during the election campaign; any RN inclined voter could take away which ever answer best suited them.
Post election the clear disappointment in the Le Pen camp is palatable. They claim the vote was stolen from them by an unholy alliance Macronists and Marxists. At the same time they have made noticeable advances in key electoral areas eating deep into the old Socialist strong holds of the South and de industrialised North. They failed in the multi-culture big cities, but took a large part of the white working class bite, both old and young. However in the second round the anti Semitic, racist and homophobic views of some of their candidates did get a lot more airing than in the first round giving a different picture of the RN that Le Pen’s airbrushing would have liked.
The Left core vote continues to be in the public sector and middle class urban vote with the addition of old Socialist and Communist rural areas. The mobilisation of “new voters” form urban migrant descendent communities is not as large as had been claimed. There is huge room for expansion, and that has to be the core task in the next two and a half years.
Whether the electoral alliance of the NTP has any future also remains to be seen. The Socialist party after been decimated post Hollande is back as the second largest left group in the Assemble, with rather amazing Holland himself. The greens of the EELV are the third, with the Communists refusing to die in fourth. The largest group Melechon’s LFI have had a few spills themselves, three of the five de selected Deputees got elected running against the official LFI candidates, with the dissidents being back by the PS and Communists. Melenchon’s stranglehold on his privately owned company seems to be slipping. Despite there being no internal democracy within the LFI dissident voices continue to be heard making it very unlikely that the LFI would prepose him as their Prime Ministerial candidate.
The Left has been very successful in mobilising young people and community groups in the working class areas around the major cities, to combat the rise of RN and anti Immigrant voice the challenge is now to extend that our from the centres into the wider community of small towns and villages.
