“Don’t say Le Pen until the second round is over”: the pitfalls of the French elections

MOSCOW: Despite the triumphant results of the National Rally in the first round of early parliamentary elections in France (33.15%), the second round could seriously cool the ambitions of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. The specificity of elections in France is that the creators of the electoral system specifically programmed them so as to prevent either the extreme right or the extreme left from coming to power.

The political regime of the Fifth Republic was developed by Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle with emergency powers and Minister of Justice Michel Debreu, together with like-minded people.

De Gaulle specifically created an election system that would not allow either the extreme right or the communists to fully come to power. It is clear that the fascists, Nazis and other extreme right-wingers were knocked out after World War II. Therefore, first of all, of course, de Gaulle did not want to see communists in power. All over the world, the communist movement after World War II, thanks to Joseph Stalin and the USSR, was on the rise, and in neighboring Italy, communists led by Palmiro Togliatti were part of all governments in 1944-1946.

It is therefore symbolic that the Constitutional Advisory Council included deputies from all parties except the French Communist Party.

Surprisingly, the French Constitution does not put forward any requirements at all for the dissolution of the National Assembly (lower house). According to the Constitution, the President of France can dissolve the National Assembly without any reason, at any time. Art. Article 12 of the French Constitution gives the president the right to dissolve the lower house after consultation with the prime minister, the speaker of the National Assembly and the head of the Senate (i.e. the leaders of both houses).

The President of the Republic may, after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Presidents of the Chambers, declare the dissolution of the National Assembly. General elections are held no earlier than 20 and no later than 40 days after dissolution (Constitution of the Fifth Republic, 1958).

It would seem that you should bloom it at least once a year! But even more surprising is that in the entire history of the Fifth Republic, French presidents dissolved the lower house only 5 times. The current elections are the result of the sixth dissolution of the National Assembly, announced by President Emmanuel Macron in early June.

Charles de Gaulle himself opened the account, having already dissolved the National Assembly in 1962 over the issue of presidential elections. De Gaulle proposed a referendum to vote for a popular election of the President; for the first time, the head of the Fifth Republic was chosen by electors in 1958. Because of this, the Christian Democrats from the MRP and the “independents” left the government, and therefore the first cabinet of Georges Pompidou was forced to resign. At the referendum, more than 60% of voters supported de Gaulle - since then the French President has been elected in popular elections.

In the early elections of 1962, de Gaulle's party won, receiving 261 seats in the National Assembly.

The Gaullists from the Union for the New Republic, together with the “independent republicans” led by the future president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who received 8 seats, formed Pompidou’s second cabinet.

After mass student riots in the spring of 1968, on May 30, de Gaulle gave a speech, announced the threat of a communist dictatorship and dissolved parliament again. In the early elections in June 1968, the Gaullists (under the name “Union of Democrats for the Republic”), together with the “Independent Republicans,” had a huge success, receiving a total of 354 parliamentary seats out of 485 in the National Assembly. This success meant that the opposition found itself on the sidelines of the political process in the lower house until the end of de Gaulle's reign. 

The next snap elections took place only in 1981. The newly elected President François Mitterrand (French Socialist Party) decided to dissolve the National Assembly in order to gain a friendly majority on the wave of success after the presidential elections. The calculations of Mitterrand’s headquarters were justified, because the 1981 elections became a triumph for the Socialist Party (FSP), which received 286 out of 491 mandates, which means the opportunity to form a government independently.

Mitterrand, like de Gaulle, dissolved the National Assembly twice. Right-wing parties won the next elections in 1986, so the government was formed and headed by the leader of the young wing of the Gaullists and future president Jacques Chirac. Nevertheless, the 1988 presidential election was again won by the socialist François Mitterrand. After winning the presidential election, Mitterrand again dissolved the National Assembly in order to ride on the wave of success to help win the FSP and form a friendly parliamentary majority in the lower house of parliament.

And again Mitterrand was successful. In the early elections of 1988, the French Socialist Party won, gaining 275 seats in parliament. The right-wing members of the Rally for the Republic, led by Jacques Chirac, received only 130 seats, while the liberals from the Union for French Democracy received 121 seats. By the way, due to the peculiarities of the electoral system, the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, despite his stunning result in the presidential elections (fourth place with 14.4% after Mitterrand, Chirac and the right-wing Raymond Barr), received only 1 parliamentary seat.

The next time the French parliament was dissolved in 1997 by the new president, Jacques Chirac. The reforms of right-wing Prime Minister Alain Juppe caused such serious indignation in French society that Chirac and the Gaullists' ratings slid down. Therefore, Chirac decided to announce elections to the National Assembly a year before the scheduled ones, so that the Gaullist rating would not have time to fall too much, and the Socialists would not grow too much.

But the early elections of 1997 went down in history because this time the French President’s plan did not work. The Gaullists from the Rally for the Republic received only 134 seats. Even in an alliance with the friendly Union for French Democracy, which took 108 mandates, it was not possible to form a majority - with the required 289 out of 577 mandates. Compared to the 253 mandates of the socialists, this was a defeat. Another 38 seats were won by French communists.

Chirac was forced to submit the candidacy of socialist Lionel Jospin to parliament for approval. As a result, in the 2022 presidential elections, Chirac and Jospin fought among themselves, so that in the end... Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the second round. The winner in the second round was the current president, Jacques Chirac.

Neither the next president, Nicholas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement), nor François Hollande (French Socialist Party) dissolved the National Assembly or announced early elections.

Therefore, on Sunday, June 30, the first snap elections of the National Assembly in 27 years took place. Despite the triumph in the first round, Marine le Pen and her fans are too early to celebrate their victory. And here we return again to Charles de Gaulle, who, together with like-minded people in the late 50s, proposed an electoral system that should cut off both the extreme right and the extreme left from coming to power.

In France, a specific electoral system is elections in 2 rounds, candidates are nominated by parties in majoritarian constituencies. After the first round, there is the possibility of blocking - that is, the parties of the big bourgeoisie unite to prevent the far left or the far right from passing. For example, a candidate from the coalition “Together for the Republic” of Emmanuel Macron & Co withdraws his candidacy and calls on his voters to vote for the left-wing “New National Front”, the center-right “Republicans” or other right-wing ones - as long as the candidates from Le Pen’s “National Rally” do not pass . Therefore, the chances are high that by the end of July 7 we will see in the National Assembly a completely different situation than what emerged after the first round.

Vyacheslav Kiyaschenko
All publications by the author

(Eadaily com)