When he became president in 2017, Emmanuel Macron insisted that he had not come to power to “reform France, but to transform it.” His election marked the end of the “old world” and the overcoming of the “traditional right-left division” in politics to give way to a new way of governing. “A new responsibility that must lead us to philosophically and legally define the rules of this new world,” he then explained in one of his first speeches.
In that 2017 presidential election, which was an earthquake in the French political landscape, scandals weighed down the conservative candidate François Fillon, the Socialist Party collapsed at the polls after five years of François Hollande’s mandate and Jean-Luc Mélenchon emerged as the main figure on the left, although without managing to reach the second round.
Macron then defeated Marine Le Pen by a wide margin, who reached the final phase of the election for the first time, 15 years after her father did so. “In the next five years I will do everything possible so that the French who voted for Marine Le Pen no longer have reasons to vote for the extremes,” said the president. the night of your choice.
A first mandate then began marked by a totally vertical exercise of power, which emanated from a president-Jupiter who controlled everything through his prime minister and the absolute majority in the National Assembly. Legislating without counting on anyone, ignoring the rest of the parliamentary forces and with the streets as the main opposition through protests such as those of the yellow vests.
The polls offered a first warning about the level of discontent with Macron in the second round of the 2022 presidential election, with a closer victory over Le Pen. And in the legislative elections that followed the re-election, the presidential coalition lost its absolute majority. However, Macron did not want to change course or method. Agreements with parties outside the presidential coalition remained rare. The government of Élisabeth Borne approved raising the retirement age by decree, against the opinion of all political forces and the vast majority of public opinion.
The two elections in 2024 (European and early legislative) have marked a new setback for the center parties, weighed down by the unpopularity of the president and his policies. Two elections in which Marine Le Pen’s party has broken its best historical records and has been confirmed as the party with the most votes in both electoral events.
Only an electoral pact between the centrists and the progressives of the New Popular Front (NFP) managed to prevent a far-right majority in the National Assembly. In the months that followed, Macron ignored calls from the NFP to appoint a left-wing prime minister and ended up choosing the conservative Michel Barnier, even though his party had not participated in the republican front against the extreme right.
Government Fragility
However, the fragmentation that has established itself in the National Assembly, with three large blocks incapable of understanding each other (left, center-right and extreme right) left the new Executive in a precarious position, without a sufficient majority to approve austerity budgets before end of the year.
“The problem with the current political situation lies less in the president’s denial of democracy, but in the fact that he seems incapable of building shared solutions with other actors in the political landscape,” political scientist Vincent Martigny, professor, recently pointed out. at the University of the Côte d’Azur and at the Polytechnic School, in an analysis published in the weekly Le1.
After the two electoral setbacks, the president, who came to power by dynamiting the traditional parties and with the mission of reducing Le Pen’s vote, ended up appointing a veteran politician as prime minister and putting his continuity in the hands of the extreme right. “The Barnier government is under the surveillance of the National Group (AN),” proclaimed the president of the Lepenist party, Jordan Bardella, at the time.
This Wednesday the ultra deputies decided to drop Barnier, adding their votes to those of the left and voting on the motion of censure presented by the NFP. Without a government or budget, France is entering even further into a situation of instability with a head of state who has less and less room for action, having lost the parliamentary majority.
Division in the party
In recent months, Emmanuel Macron has defended on several occasions a coalition that extends to the center-left, trying to attract the PS members most hostile to Jean-Luc Mélenchon in order to break the alliance of progressive forces.
But Macron’s way of governing and the emblematic measures of seven years of Macronism (favorable taxation for companies, increase in the minimum retirement age, an immigration law voted with the right) complicate future pacts.
The secretary general of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, indicated this Friday that his party is willing to negotiate with the coalition of Emmanuel Macron and the traditional right of the Republicans on the basis of “reciprocal concessions.” The left of France Insoumise, the majority group in the NFP coalition, rejects this possibility.
Faure met this Friday with Macron at the Elysée. “It is necessary that we find a solution because we cannot paralyze the country for months,” he said. “The rebels have excluded themselves from this negotiation.
“The synthesis between the social-liberalism that Macron embodied in 2017 and social democracy – structurally weak in France – has never fully occurred,” analyzed columnist Françoise Fressoz in Le Monde. “The differences regarding the exercise of power, the space for unions, the relationship with liberalism and the role of taxes have constituted an insurmountable frontier.”
In fact, if in 2017 Macron came to power largely favored by the crisis of the traditional parties, today it is his party that shows significant divisions. The president has also lost support and influence in the formation that he himself founded. Gabriel Attal, whose relations with Macron deteriorated after not being consulted by the president about the dissolution of the Assembly, is imposing his control. With increasingly independent action, although without consummating the break with a president whose levels of unpopularity are at record levels.
Even more serious, the last electoral cycles have also meant wear and tear on the institutions. A recent Ipsos study revealed that 55% of French people are dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy (4 points more than in 2023) and 74% consider that this functioning has deteriorated in the last five years. This is a survey that has been carried out in seven countries (including Spain) and in which France has the highest numbers in the discontent chapter.
This is the context of the new phase of the Macron presidency, which must end in 2027, although doubts are beginning to appear in France about whether he will be able to reach the end of the mandate. In the short term, however, the fall of Michel Barnier once again places the president at the center of the political game, since it is up to him to appoint the new head of the Government. Macron assured on Thursday that he does not plan to resign.
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