Emmanuel Macron will remain president regardless of poll result
The defiant French president’s vow to continue in his role with a rival if necessary has led to speculation of a rocky ‘cohabitation’ with a hostile prime minister.
Emmanuel Macron has ruled out resigning from the French presidency, no matter the result of this month’s snap parliamentary elections.
If Mr Macron’s dramatic gamble to call for the election fails to galvanise much needed support for his Renew party then he has insisted he will remain as president with a politically hostile prime minister.
Such a rocky “cohabitation’’ would continue until the French presidential vote due in 2027.
On Tuesday Mr Macron told Le Figaro magazine: “It is not the National Rally that writes the constitution, nor the spirit of it. The institutions are clear, the place of the president is clear, and it is also clear whatever the result.’’
Under cohabitation protocols the president retains control of national security and diplomacy, which would make crucial decisions on Ukraine, Israel and NATO, and attend international events such as the Paris Olympics while the prime minister can push through his party’s bills. If there is no clear cut parliamentary winner then the parliament could become unworkable confusion, including having Macron try and govern without a clear majority.
The most recent cohabitation was in 1997 when right wing president Jacques Chirac had to appoint a socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, and over the next five years various left wing bills were passed through parliament, including shortening the working week to 35 hours.
Macron’s sudden election call came after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, also known in French as Rassemblement National, attracted a maelstrom of support from young people swinging behind the 28 year old National Rally president Jordan Bardella. At last weekend’s European elections the National Rally secured 31.37 per cent of the French vote, with Macron’s candidates attracting just half of that at 14.6 per cent. The far right party Marion Maréchal’s Reconquête! obtained 5.5 per cent support. Overall French turnout was 51 per cent.
Macron’s shock dissolution of parliament has had an immediate impact. Left leaning parties from the Greens to the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s eco-socialist party La France Insoumise, have agreed to form a new coalition to try and counter this rise to the right.
Leaders Marine Tondelier of the Greens, Olivier Faure from the Socialists, Fabien Roussel from the Communists and Manuel Bompard of La France Insoumise, announced a combined “Popular Front” party bringing together “all the forces of the humanist left, trade unions, associations and citizens.”
However this loose coalition, firstly mooted by La France Insoumise’s future presidential candidate François Ruffin who urged others to “cut the idiocy”, will have to make quick policy agreements in the coming days on pressing issues such as migration, recognition of Palestine, the minimum wage, pensions and net zero, as well as working out its structure and leadership. “Each side is advancing on its red lines,” said Faure on Tuesday morning.
On the right of the political spectrum there was some confusion on Tuesday when Eric Ciotti, the leader of the conservative Republican party, sought an alliance with National Rally to “oppose the impotence of Macronism and the danger of the rebellious”. But this suggested alliance sparked a backlash among many senior members of his own party who called for his resignation.
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