Miscalculation or Choice? Emmanuel Macron Takes Another Thrashing

Reality has hit the French government and elites in the face. French voters, furious at those who have run the country for so many years, sent them a clear message: “Le Pen’s party is the only party we haven’t tried yet; We’ll try it this time!”

And to make sure the message was heard, voter turnout was massive compared to previous years: 66.7% of registered voters cast ballots on June 30, nearly 20% more than the 47.5% in legislative elections in 2022. Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and its ally in the right wing around Eric Ciotti, received a huge 33.1% of the vote, with its candidates coming in first in 297 (out of 577) races.

The second “winner” was the United Left alliance (La France insoumise, Socialist Party and Green Party), which scored a significant 28.1% of the vote and came in first in 155 districts. The big loser is Emmanuel Macron’s party, Ensemble, which just scraped by the 20% mark.

The second round on July 7 will determine how many of each party are actually elected. Given the specific electoral rules, there could be three candidates in a significant number of districts. But in most of them, one of the non-RN candidates will withdraw in order to defeat the RN candidate.

In a statement issued July 1 as President of the Solidarité & Progrès party, Jacques Cheminade wrote: “The first round of the French legislative elections was a groundswell of opposition against the old regime’s policy of subservience to financial globalism. However, the political forces claiming to represent this popular will to break with the past are themselves trapped in the straitjacket that has been imposed on us since 1946.

“They all pretend that the risk of war does not exist. None of them is fighting head-on the financial oligarchy of the City, Wall Street, BlackRock and all the propagators of criminal social austerity. None of them challenges the policy of Western rearmament pursued by this oligarchy. Not one of them really questions the subordination of European states in the fields of military weapons, energy and data. Not one of them has made public the forthcoming recommendation arising from Article 126 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, in the context of the excessive deficit procedure, which condemns our leaders to enslave their own people.”

The full statement and more can be read here.