Macronoff - Village Magazine

June-August 2024 71

He will lose his bet and the co-cockpit

of the EU will fall to its most right-wing

government. As to the Presidency there

are reasons to be pessimistic — that

France may follow Trump

he European Parliament elections

held on June 6th-9th mostly

consolidated the centre but

subverted three member

governments. These are the

Austrian where Herbert Kickl’s Freedom Party

won its ﬁrst ever nationwide election and the

German where the Social Democrats of

Chancellor Olaf Scholz succumbed to their

worst outcome in a national election in almost

150 years of existence. And above all the

French, where President Emmanuel Macron

responded to the pasting of his party,

Renaissance (18%), by the hard right which

obtained twice its vote (36% when you

combine the votes for National Rally (RN) and

Reconquest) by dissolving the French

parliament and calling a risky snap election.

The RN led by Jordan Bardella whom Village

is obliged to describe as young and

charismatic and, in Parliament, by Marine Le

Pen, who’s been around and is only the latter,

is likely to become the biggest force in

France’s Parliament in the elections to be held

on 30 June. On 19 June Bardella revealed his

strategy: “If I do not have an absolute

majority, then I will refuse to be appointed

Prime Minister”.

A policy document seen by Le Figaro says

RN will “drastically reduce legal and illegal

immigration, as well as deport foreign

delinquents” which it also presents as a way

to help save public money. Bardella said

changes would be made “within the ﬁrst few

weeks” of him becoming prime minister. The

RN platform has not yet been published but

the party’s 2022 promises included:

expulsion of more migrants, including

those unemployed for more than a year;

an end to family reuniﬁcations; aording

beneﬁts, housing and job preference to

French nationals; privatisating French

public radio and television and

Macronoff

French

President

gambles

everything

By Michael Smith

legislating for the “presumption of

legitimate self-defence” for officers

involved in cases of alleged police

violence aimed at “restoring authority

and boosting morale”.

It pledged to reduce the retirement age

from 64 to 62/60, oer a zero-interest

€100,000 loan to boost home ownership,

axe inheritance tax for many and exempt

the under-30s from income tax.

Together with RN’s planned VAT cuts on

energy and other measures such as the

renationalisation of France’s motorways,

economists in 2022 costed the hit to public

ﬁnances at €120bn a year, against just €18bn

in savings.

An Elabe poll on 12 June showed the RN

winning 31% of votes in the ﬁrst round against

28% for an insurgent new alliance of left-wing

parties and the Greens, 18% for Macron’s

Renaissance party and 6.5% for Les

Républicains, the Gaullist party founded by

dodgy Nicolas Sarkozy whose leader was

expelled when he announced he was willing

to ally with the dread RN but who closed down

party headquarters in protest and got the

decision overturned by a court. The

diminished Socialist Party which obtained

only 1.5% at the last Presidential election

actually scored a creditable 14% in the

European Parliament election and will ﬁght as

part of the leftwing alliance. Its lost former

leader Francois Hollande is running for it.

Reconquest, whose lead European Parliament

candidate was Le Pen’s young and charismatic

niece, is on 4%.

Six yers ago I wrote that Macron had shown

more leadership than the entire rest of the

Western world since his election: “He claims

to have found a political path between left

and right, has made clear in the most elegant

ways his disdain for Trump and has bowed to

nobody, least of all Vladimir Putin, in sharing

truths about international political thuggery”.

Two years ago I noted that his policies

worked better in practice than in theory and

that he had history more than ideology on his

side: Village is no champion of liberal

centrism. There seems no reason to change

any of these views. Macron may have policy

successes but he will have failed, over a

decade, to staunch France’s rightward

crescendo.

In the past one would have given the beneﬁt

of the doubt to Macron’s serial political

gambles and assumed that, while the RN

might form the next government, the French

people would recoil from their excesses. The

system will probably engineer the thwarting

by the President, and striking down by courts,

of some of the RN’s rasher legislation as

unconstitutional. Macron, the Jupiterian

strategist, the always-thoughtful disciple of

the philosopher, Paul Ricoeur. would then be

positioned to manipulate his succession as

President by the young and charismatic

Gabriel Attal, in 2027.

Sadly it seems more likely he will lose his

bet and the co-cockpit of the EU will fall to the

most rights-unfriendly, anti-immigrant and

right-wing government in the EU. As to the

Presidency, there are reasons to be

pessimistic. A much better hope now seems

to be the new Left/Green Alliance.

According to the Economist magazine,

which considers her more dangerous than

Italy’s Giorgia Meloni: “Ms Le Pen has tried to

rebrand herself as a mainstream ﬁgure, but

don’t be fooled. She is a ﬁrebrand with a long

history of xenophobia and sucking up to

Russia. She wants to create a mega-group of

nationalists that could yank Europe hard to

the right”.

On 15 June half a million people protested

in France, the most unhappy country, against

the prospect of the far right coming to power.

More are needed.

Do not be deceived

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