Protesters gather during an anti-far-right demonstration after French President Emmanuel Macron called parliamentary elections, following significant gains by far-right parties in the European Parliament elections in Paris on June 15, 2024.
Lou Benoist | Afp | Getty Images
French President Emmanuel Macron is facing a reckoning after the country's far-right made historic gains in the first round of snap parliamentary elections.
The National Rally, led by fire-eater Marine Le Pen, and its allies won more than 33% of the vote on Sunday in a resounding rejection of Macron’s centrist, globalist policies. If they win an absolute majority in Sunday’s second round of voting, Macron’s power will be severely weakened.
Calling the election was a high-stakes gamble for the French president who came to power more than seven years ago. He characterized the race as a choice between nationalism and demagoguery on one side and liberal values and a strong, united European Union on the other — but many now believe his gamble backfired.
Thomas Piketty, a successful French economist and professor of economics, pointed out what he called one of Macron's biggest mistakes: ignoring and demonizing the left wing in France.
“What I'm a little concerned about is that the current government has tried to demonize the left over the last few weeks, days and months — even though Macron would never have been elected without the left,” Piketty, author of the book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” told CNBC's “Street Signs Europe” on Monday.
“Without the left-wing votes for Macron against Le Pen in 2022 and 2017, he would not have been president. And he never really tried to do anything with the people who made him president.”
Piketty described France as a country with three main voting blocs: the far right, the centrist business bloc and the left. He described Macron's centrist party, Renaissance, as getting votes in “the very chic places in the country” where there are concentrations of the business elite, and said that “they thought they could stay in power just by catering” to that bloc.
Macron’s supporters and the left have been busy this week joining forces to prevent the far right from dominating France’s legislature, as they did in the 2022 and 2017 presidential elections. But many of Macron’s policies, such as slashing social security, raising the national retirement age and suppressing protests, have served to alienate left-wing voters.
“You can't govern the country like this for long, with such a narrow electoral base,” Piketty said.
“I think this is a big lesson for this election, which also applies to other countries: the idea of merging the centre-right and the centre-left, and [the] winners of globalization running the country together against left and right is not something that will work for long.”
Macron called early parliamentary elections for June 9 after the party suffered a painful defeat in the European Parliament elections. In several countries, including France, Germany and Austria, right-wing parties made big gains.
Before the second round of elections for the French National Assembly with 577 seats, 200 candidates have indicated that they are withdrawing from the raceReuters cited local media to avoid splitting the vote for the far right.
To achieve this goal, Macron has called for unity among the centre-left and centre-right and called for a “broad demonstration behind republican and democratic” candidates.
