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Emmanuel Macron greets onlookers after voting in Le Touquet, June 9, 2024. Photo Hannah McKay / AP
EDITORIAL Since there is a fire at the lake, we might as well continue to fuel the blaze. Barely knowing the result of the European election, which confirmed almost everywhere in Europe but especially in France a surge of the extreme right, Emmanuel Macron, who had promised to be the bulwark against the said extreme right but has not stopped to give him something to grind, hastened without consulting anyone, to announce the dissolution of the National Assembly, with a first round of legislative elections in twenty days! Childish whim veering towards irresponsibility or deliberate strategy to facilitate the National Rally's accession to power?
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First observation: we French are alone in the world. Anyone who followed the election night last night on France 2 will have been completely unaware that people were also voting in Spain and Finland, in Romania and the Netherlands, in Cyprus and Ireland, in Lithuania and Portugal, etc. . We will thus have been kept in the dark about the fact that in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark), the clear progression of left-wing and environmentalist parties has led to the withdrawal of far-right parties; extreme right which has almost completely failed in Malta, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Portugal. Obviously, these countries are not among those which send the most deputies to the European Parliament, but until proven otherwise, they are still part of the European Union.
Certainly, the good result of the progressive movements does not reverse the general trend: the conservative and/or liberal right consolidates its majority in the European Parliament, and the environmentalist vote is in clear decline. The far right, finally, made a spectacular breakthrough, going from 115 to 178 seats. And it is in France that this result is the most striking, with 35 seats out of 81: alone, almost half of the far right's seats in the future European Parliament.
Is this a surprise? Since the presence of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election in 2002, there has not been an election that has not seen the former National Front, now National Rally, make progress. And each time, we heard the political leaders in power say: this time, we understood, we are going to meet the expectations of the French, patati patata, if I lie I am going to hell : by lying, the hell is getting closer... Latest betrayal to date: April 24, 2022, on the evening of the second round of the presidential election which he won against Marine Le Pen with 58.4% of the votes, thanks to the votes of the right , from the center, the left and the ecologists, Emmanuel Macron declared: “I know that many of our compatriots voted for me today not to support the ideas that I hold but to block those of the extreme right. I want to thank them here and tell them that I am aware that this vote binds me for years to come. I am the guardian of their sense of duty, their attachment to the Republic and respect for the differences that have been expressed in recent weeks. (…) From now on, I am no longer the candidate of one camp, but the President of all. I also know that for many of our compatriots, who have chosen the extreme right today, the anger and disagreements which led them to vote for this project must find a response. This will be my responsibility and that of those around me. Because today's vote requires us to consider all the difficulties of the lives we live and to respond effectively to the anger that has been expressed. » As a result of which the urgency was, for example, to rush through the pension reform, in defiance of Parliament and public opinion.
The president of the dilapidated
That fear of the present and the future generates withdrawal into oneself and adherence to ultra-conservative values, resulting in a nationalist and/or sovereignist vote, is a fact which is not exclusive to France and of which the European election which has just taken place carries the message. We are a long way from the manifesto for another Europe, signed in November 1991 by 25 renowned writers, which we published a month ago ( HERE ). However, nowhere other than in France has this far-right wave reached such a peak. This is a personal failure of Emmanuel Macron, president of the dilapidated party (read HERE ) who has continued to add fuel to the embers of discontent.
That there is fire at the lake is certain. This fire has been fueled by so many abandonments... We leave it to more distinguished sociologists to make connections between far-right scores and territorial situations. Suffice it here to take the example of Aisne, one of the most impoverished departments in France, with an unemployment rate which reaches 17% (more than 35% for 15-24 year olds) and a rate poverty which reaches 18.8% (compared to 14.5% in mainland France), and where the budget of the Departmental Council, at half mast, requires the reduction or elimination of subsidies to cultural, sporting, civic associations, etc., which participate(ai)ent in “social cohesion”. In this department, the far-right obtained more than 56% of the votes cast, and would doubtless be dubbed in the first round of a legislative election.
It is in this context that Emmanuel Macron announced, yesterday evening, the dissolution of the National Assembly, with a first round of legislative elections set for June 30, in 20 days! Once again, Jupiter made his decision alone, without consulting anyone (according to Le Monde , even the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, would have been "stunned"). Once again, Emmanuel Macron shows his contempt for institutions, and also for his “close entourage”. Even if a dissolution had been necessary, nothing required such a hasty decision, with such rapid timing .
The presidential decision seems like a child's whim. We can only repeat what we wrote here on May 28: “We cannot accuse the President of the Republic of insincerity when he expresses his refusal of the extreme right. However, in a corner of his unconscious, doesn't he want it? Although he tries to convince himself of it, his desire to transform the French Republic into a start-up nation does not work, or only marginally. We can imagine that he would feel anger, disappointment and resentment towards the French who were not intelligent enough to adhere to his reforming audacity. It would then not be unthinkable that he would want to “punish” them for so much ingratitude. And Jupiter is so infatuated with himself that he could be tempted to think, in his heart of hearts: “after me, the flood”. And this flood, to prepare it. »
Here we are. In this sense, the hasty dissolution of the National Assembly, as disastrous as it may be (it offers a boulevard to the coming fascism), is perhaps not a serious error of conduct, but a deliberate choice by Emmanuel Macron: after the “ultimatum strategy” which he has used and abused in recent months, here is one of chaos.
Who to oppose it? A right in tatters cannot but. As for the left... The call for a rally, launched yesterday by the communist Fabien Roussel and the ecologists, was immediately overruled by rebellious France, for whom there can only be a "rally" on the condition of adhere to the only line decreed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who declared last night “not to fear the people” . By ultimately refusing any alliance or compromise, this is another strategy of chaos that Jean-Luc Mélenchon is aiming for, as he expressed it in a debate with the post-Marxist "philosopher" Chantal Mouffe: "revolutionary" hope "to create the conditions for a popular insurrection which would bring, more surely than an election, its ideas to power...
A last one before we go. The information came out this morning. While gas prices oscillate at levels ten times lower than the peak of the energy crisis in the summer of 2022, millions of French people are on the verge of seeing their bill explode: on July 1 (in between rounds of the legislative election), the average price of the gas bill will increase by 11.7% in July. Another nice little boost for the National Rally, which didn't ask for so much.