Typical of the french and very amusing:
Macron lost at the EU elections, the right won - Marine Le Pen, Rassemblement National, got an unprecedented just over 30%.
By way of background: France is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic. The President of the Republic is the head of state, and the Prime Minister is the head of government. Elections to the National assembly are on a first past the post system and the majority party or the party that can form a Coalition forms the government and decides the Prime Minister but notice that these are not Presidential elections that we're talking about here.
The main political parties include La République En Marche! (LREM), led by Emmanuel Macron, and the National Rally (Rassemblement National), led by Marine Le Pen.
Other significant parties are The Republicans (Les Républicains) and the Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste).
Marine Le Pen leads the nationalist and popular National Rally (RN) (formerly called "far-right" and "populist", note). Recently, Le Pen's party won significant victories in the European Parliament elections and several local elections. These successes mark a shift in voter sentiment towards more nationalist and populist or just plain popular as her success was spread pretty evenly across the voting districts.
This victory suggests growing support for RN's policies, which include strict immigration controls and scepticism towards the European Union, as well as greater tolerance of Russia and China and more skeptical attitude towards America. It also reflects discontent with traditional political parties.
Macron quickly decided to call parliamentaries, thinking the electorate would not want a majority Penist NF govt. (They call themselves the National Rally these days.) On the theory that people tend to vote more in protest/more extreme in EU elections as it's a step removed.
He gave the min. notice possible, three weeks (cf six in rhe UK).
Suddenly parties that had been fighting each other at the proportional representation election in the EU, now found themselves having to make coalition for this First Pass The Post system.
The left and greens and far left group under Melenchon's La France Insoumise, "France Unbowed", despite myriad points of divergence - how long will that hold? Half a million came out on the streets yesterday waving Palestinian flags and wearing checkered keffiyehs, many of them outside La Nation. There were already good-hearted anti US-Israel demos there...see movie n photos below.
You may remember that in 2017, Emmanuel Macron pushed out his boss François Hollande to win the presidency.
(Hollande was the guy who approved a peace Accord 2014 and Agreement at Minsk in 2015, along with Merkel, to resolve the Maidan coup; and they both admitted in 2022 that the whole thing had been a ruse to buy time for the West to arm Ukraine to fight Russia ... and bombing The Donbas began that same year, after Russia repossessed Crimea.)
Anyway, never mind all that...Hollande is running again now, in his old constituency; and in the event of a second defeat Macron is more likely to resign, given his self love orgeuil, rather than form a coalition with Le Pen (never) or the LR (who are they?).
As there's a whole disgraceful (to some) story of the leader of Les Republicains, Eric Ciotti, which is the party of Chirac and Sarkozy, doing just such a deal with the National Front - sorry, "National Rally" - Le Pen, by which one or t'other would withdraw from a seat in the second round, the result of which is that Ciotti has been holed up in his bedroom by the other half of his much-shrunken party and now there'll be two candidates from Les Reps running in the same seat!
The flags are out again at La Nation....and they're not Tricolore.
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