President Macron’s centrist coalition and the newly formed left-wing coalition NFP sprung into action on the eve of the election. Image: WP
The results of the French election came as a huge shock to the whole world as almost all polling agencies had predicted a landslide victory for the right-wing party, the National Rally (NR). However, despite winning the highest vote share of 37.4 percent, the NR failed to secure the minimum 289 seats needed to form a government in France. Instead of a highly anticipated NR government, the country is now staring at a suspended parliament with no option but to have a coalition government of centrists led by President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party and leftists represented by the New Popular Front come together to run the country for the next five years.
This result is surprising given that the resurgence of the right in the European elections was what prompted Macron to dissolve the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, and call general elections much earlier than planned. In the European elections, right-wing parties won a combined 40% of the vote, while Macron’s party was reduced to just 14%. This was seen as a sign that the “far right” had now become the primary political force in France, and Macron took it so personally that he announced early general elections.
But for Macron, the result came as a relief, not only because his party was not as bad as expected, but also because his rival, the National Party, was prevented from forming a government. But does this also mean that the right is not as strong as it was made out to be? Evidently not. To show this, let’s analyze the election verdict further.
French elections are slightly different from the Indian system, where whoever first wins a seat is declared the winner of that seat. However, France has a two-round voting system, where if a candidate fails to receive at least 50% of the votes, a second round of voting is held in that seat. In the first round, Marine Le Pen’s NR won the most votes, but with 289 seats and no clear winner, a runoff election was imminent. The runoff, or second round, took place on July 7, and NR was again the largest party with 37% of the vote, followed by its rival, the New Popular Front, with only 26% and Macron’s centrist party with 22%. However, despite consistently large vote shares in both rounds, NR failed to secure the majority it needed.
Now, the world media, including the Indian media, is covering this as a defeat for the right wing in a wide range of ways. But there could not be a more glaring example of intellectual dishonesty. In fact, the NR has the most support from the French people, but the reason it could not come to power is because of a strategic alliance between the centre and the left.
As soon as the news broke that NR had won the most votes in the first round, President Macron’s centrist Ensemble and the newly formed left-wing coalition NFP swung into action on the eve of the election. What was meant to be a right-left-centre triangular second round quickly became a choice between the right and a carefully planned left-centre coalition. 102 left-wing candidates withdrew to vote for the centre, and 83 centrist candidates withdrew from the election to support the left. From this point on, it was anyone’s guess what the outcome of the election would be.
For the next five years, the NR was prevented from taking power and instead handed a hung parliament to the voters. Not in the usual democratic way where voters have a choice. The centre-left leaders used explicit party whips to keep the NR out. But does that mean the NR is a political force to be reckoned with? Absolutely not. If we look away from the narrative we are being painted, the truth is that the NR has consistently outperformed expectations over the past 15 years. Since Marine Le Pen took over the reins of the party from her father, she has rounded the corners of the party to attract a wider political base.
Today, a large proportion of voters, especially young people, identify with NR’s politics, and its number of seats has increased from just two in 2012 to 142 in 2024. When the party talks about the threat of immigrants, it resonates with a French population tired of frequent violence by the far left and gangs like Antifa. A significant portion of the French population wants to return to the good old France, where left-wing inclusivity was not used to cultivate immigrants, especially Muslims, as a voting bloc. Their demand for a “France first” or “people first” politics seems legitimate when immigrant appeasement seems to undermine their choices in their home countries. Ironically, it is the newly arrived asylum seekers and refugees who are labelled as “racists” and “Islamophobes” while they refuse to assimilate into the French population.
Interestingly, the French election results also have many eerily similarities with the 2024 Indian elections. The alignment of centres and lefts in France is reminiscent of the strategic alliance between the Indian National Congress and countless other parties that joined hands to defeat the BJP in the form of the INDI alliance. Despite having very different ideological backgrounds, they came together only to keep Prime Minister Narendra Modi out of power. In France, their target was Marine Le Pen. And the smooth vote shift between centres and lefts in France reminds us of what happened in India. In Uttar Pradesh and even Assam, Muslims did not vote on the basis of secular values, but explicitly supported only the party best suited to defeat the BJP.
The strategic alliance of INDI parties resulted in the consolidation of reserved votes (SC/ST) and minority votes, winning more seats than expected. Reverse polarisation of Hindu votes did not happen because the “caste card” was already used as a weapon too powerful to fail. Even the high voter turnout in the second round of the French elections reminds us of the early stages of the 2024 Indian elections and shows how aggressively on-ground support was consolidated to keep the BJP out of power.
The only difference between the French and Indian elections is that the NR failed to form a government despite winning the most votes, while the BJP barely held on and returned to power. But what does all this say about the nature of our democracy? A worrying picture is emerging of how a tactical alliance between the centre and the left, despite representing voters’ very legitimate concerns on immigration and other issues, could derail the wheels of much-needed change.
In India, the Congress itself has leaned so far to the Left that its manifesto today would put even the communist parties of the world to shame. To make matters worse, democracy, a system that guarantees government of the people, for the people and by the people, has become a tool for a few vested interests to exert power. Their tendency to vote en masse has the power to hold the entire country hostage.
Find us on YouTube
subscribe
