--- title: Macron's Disastrous Election Gamble description: The French President had a bruising night in Sunday's shock election results. There are lessons to be drawn for the democratic West. canonical: https://time.com/6995779/france-macron-disastrous-election/ author: Cole Stangler article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-07-08T14:59:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:24.599Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Macron's Disastrous Election og:description: If politicians want to defeat the far-right, they should steer clear of the French President's approach—and look to the left instead. og:url: https://time.com/6995779/france-macron-disastrous-election/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4e584659463ca040/698a5878cabb1d59dce544b1/macronism-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: macronism-1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Macron's Disastrous Election twitter:description: If politicians want to defeat the far-right, they should steer clear of the French President's approach—and look to the left instead. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4e584659463ca040/698a5878cabb1d59dce544b1/macronism-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # Macron's Disastrous Election > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=0f71adbb-7a13-47ea-b69c-7bebda86c7b4&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: France Rejects Far Right as Left Wins Most but Not Majority of Seats, Leaving Hung Parliament [Watch (HLS stream): France Rejects Far Right as Left Wins Most but Not Majority of Seats, Leaving Hung Parliament](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zQn34b3K.m3u8) (4:59)  _Published 2024-07-08. France’s election results, in which a coalition of left-wing and centrist parties staved off the insurgent rise of the far right, are being celebrated around the world—from politicians, like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, to celebrities, including members of France’s national soccer team who are currently competing in the European Championship in Germany._ Jul 8, 2024 2:59 PM UTC  French President Emmanuel Macron at the French Foreign Ministry, at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, on June 20, 2024. French President Emmanuel Macron at the French Foreign Ministry, at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, on June 20, 2024. Dylan Martinez—POOL/AFP/Getty Images by [Cole Stangler](https://time.com/author/cole-stangler/) ## Cole Stangler Contributor Stangler is a journalist based in Marseille and the author of Le Miroir Américain. Jul 8, 2024 2:59 PM UTC French President Emmanuel Macron had a [bruising](https://news.sky.com/story/france-elections-latest-far-right-national-rally-hoping-to-win-majority-as-second-round-vote-sees-huge-rise-in-turnout-13173764) [night](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c724nnn29keo). After Sunday’s crucial legislative election, his centrist Ensemble alliance still has [168 MPs in the National Assembly](https://www.ft.com/content/a7d4bd40-4f4f-41b7-bd96-4ef4a530972d). He may well try to stage a comeback after his Presidential term expires in 2027\. But Macron’s deeper political project—the belief that he could single-handedly forge a new and lasting political consensus through pro-business reforms with an increased emphasis on law-and-order—has gone up in flames. It may take time for newly-elected legislators to reach a consensus and form a new government. In the 66-year history of France’s Fifth Republic, the National Assembly has never been as divided as it is now, with the largest number of seats belonging to a [broad left-wing coalition](https://time.com/6991254/macron-bardella-le-pen-far-right-left-election/), followed by Macron’s Ensemble, and then the far-right. But whatever these parties decide, this much is clear: the center of political gravity in France has shifted from the Élysée Palace to the _Palais Bourbon_. Its 577 MPs will be the ones determining the direction of French politics and the President will be forced to live with their choices. As past experiences of “cohabitation” have shown, it’s the Prime Minister who sets the national agenda, with the President focusing on defense and foreign policy. Barred from calling new elections for at least another year, Macron will now be reduced to the role of outside observer—just one actor among many. ## An own-goal for the ages In the run up to his [first election in 2017](https://time.com/4718192/emmanuel-macron-france-president-election-race-interview/), then-candidate Macron emphasized his goal was to weaken an ascendant far-right. By that metric alone, his presidency could be deemed a failure: Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) now has a record number of MPs. And instead of a brilliant gamble, his move to call snap legislative elections after the RN’s win in [European Parliament elections on June 10](https://time.com/6987120/europe-eu-elections-france-macron-far-right/), will go down as one of the most bewildering own-goals in French political history. The largest bloc in the National Assembly is now the [left-wing New Popular Front](https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/france-election-runoff-results-07-07-24-intl/index.html), which soared thanks to its popular economic proposals like raising the minimum wage and hiking taxes on the rich as well as intense voter backlash against the RN. The disastrous results for Macron will only fuel speculation about his motivations for dissolving the National Assembly in the first place. One should not rule out the possibility that the President was ready to give Le Pen’s party a chance to govern. According to this [theory](https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2024/07/01/comment-emmanuel-macron-se-prepare-a-une-cohabitation-avec-l-extreme-droite%5F6245733%5F823448.html) that circulated the halls of the Elysée, giving the RN a share of power would’ve tainted the party’s anti-establishment mystique and decreased its chances of winning the presidency in 2027\. As France’s newspaper of record _Le Monde_ [reported](https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2024/07/05/legislatives-2024-entre-l-elysee-et-matignon-tensions-sur-le-front-republicain%5F6247185%5F823448.html), it was Prime Minister [Gabriel Attal](https://time.com/6553429/gabriel-attal-france-prime-minister/)—not Macron—who took the lead on the strategy of encouraging candidates to drop out of second-round races to reduce the risks of an RN majority. If the so-called “[Republican front](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/04/french-elections-what-is-the-republican-front-and-will-it-head-off-national-rally)” lived to see another day, it’s thanks to the left coalition, which [withdrew more candidates](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/2/more-than-200-candidates-pull-out-of-french-run-off-to-foil-far-right) from second-round races than anyone else. And it’s thanks to Macronist candidates, but not the President himself. They helped lay the groundwork for French voters to deliver a punishing blow to Le Pen’s party. ### More from TIME But hubris should never be discounted when trying to understand the French President. From his top-down style of governance and carefully-calibrated communications strategy to his projections of French power abroad, Macron [fashions himself](https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2021/01/08/le-general-de-gaulle-grand-inspirateur-d-emmanuel-macron%5F6065561%5F3232.html) a modern-day Charles de Gaulle, the World War II hero and towering statesman who shaped France’s post-war institutions. Macron’s interior minister described the election gamble as very “[Gaullian](https://www.tf1info.fr/elections/direct-dissolution-de-l-assemblee-nationale-la-campagne-des-elections-legislatives-2024-deja-lancee-les-dernieres-informations-aujourd-hui-lundi-10-juin-2024-2303234.html),” a nod to the man who dissolved the National Assembly on two occasions and made sweeping constitutional [changes](https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/referendum-sous-la-ve-republique/tableau-recapitulatif-des-referendums-de-la-veme-republique) through popular referenda. He may have genuinely thought he could win. **Read More:** [_Read TIME's Full Conversation With Emmanuel Macron_](https://time.com/5680174/france-emmanuel-macron-transcript-interview/) But of the countless differences between Macron and de Gaulle, perhaps the most important one is that the current French President is tremendously [unpopular](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-21/macron-approval-rating-falls-to-match-previous-low). Starting with his [very first election in 2017](https://time.com/emmanuel-macron-president-france-interview/), Macron never seemed to recognize that many of his votes had come from those determined to deny the presidency to his far-right opponent. Instead of governing France like the politically-divided nation that it is, he acted as if he had a mandate to tear up and rewrite the nation’s social contract. In some sense, all the problems flow from this misunderstanding. Macron’s pro-business economic reforms were often celebrated abroad as a much-needed jolt to an overly-regulated national economy, but back home, they were widely perceived as cruel and unfair. Workers got unemployment benefits [slashed](https://www.france24.com/en/20190618-macron-france-philippe-reform-unemployment-benefits) and saw labor protections [loosened](https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-labor-reform-5-key-points/). The well-off got cuts in the [capital gains tax ](https://www.ft.com/content/3d907582-b893-11e7-9bfb-4a9c83ffa852)and the [wealth tax](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tax/macron-fights-president-of-the-rich-tag-after-ending-wealth-tax-idUSKCN1C82CZ/). The [much-loathed hike](https://time.com/6264463/macron-no-confidence-vote/) in the retirement age from 62 to 64 disproportionately [hit](https://inegalites.fr/Retraites-le-projet-de-reforme-est-il-injuste) people working tougher jobs and living shorter lives. Macron repeatedly [opposed](https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/pouvoir-d-achat-lrem-lr-et-le-rn-votent-contre-l-augmentation-du-smic-proposee-par-la-nupes%5FAN-202207210048.html) significant hikes in the minimum wage or [raising](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/02/25/no-tax-increases-macron-s-dogma-challenged%5F6017226%5F7.html) taxes on the rich. All of this ramped up hostility among low-to-middle-income voters.  France's far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party volunteers paste campaign posters of party President and lead European Parliament election candidate Jordan Bardella in Lyon on May 6, 2024. Jeff Pachoud—AFP/Getty Images But something else happened, too. Toward the end of his first term, Macron and his allies started flirting more and more with conservative talking points and even tried legislating on some of the RN’s preferred themes—thinking perhaps they could outmaneuver them on their own territory. His ministers criticized the ravages of “[wokisme](https://www.ouest-france.fr/societe/c-est-quoi-le-wokisme-cette-ideologie-que-jean-michel-blanquer-dit-vouloir-combattre-22b58616-2cc1-11ec-9285-f388b2ea32b0)” and “[Islamo-leftism](https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/france-universities-macron/).” His party passed a sweeping [security law](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/world/europe/france-security-bill-passes.html) that included a measure that would have [criminalized](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/03/france-new-security-law-risks-dystopian-surveillance-state-2/) the filming of police officers ([blocked](https://www.euronews.com/2021/05/20/france-s-constitutional-council-rejects-controversial-move-to-restrict-images-of-police) by the Constitutional Council). He passed an immigration law that achieved a longstanding RN demand to restrict foreigners from accessing critical welfare programs (also [blocked](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-immigration-law-constitutional-council-scraps-articles/) by the same court). He vowed to ramp up the [war on drugs](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/trafic-de-drogue-emmanuel-macron-a-marseille-pour-le-lancement-de-l-operation-place-nette-xxl%5F6434476.html) and signed off on an experiment to impose [mandatory school uniforms](https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/voila-a-quoi-va-ressembler-l-uniforme-scolaire-concocte-par-l-executif-20240119). If this rightward drift was supposed to boost Macron’s standing among conservative voters and reduce the appeal of the RN, then it too can be deemed a failure. Just consider the first-round results of the last two legislative elections: since 2022, Macron’s coalition lost five percentage points, while the RN gained more than 14\. French politics remain a battle between three blocs, but with a new balance of forces: the centrist alliance is flagging, the far-right is surging, and the left is slowly gaining steam. ## The leftist lesson It’s difficult to predict what comes next. Built by de Gaulle, France’s post-war state wasn’t designed for moments like these, as the Constitution does not address scenarios where the President and Prime Minister come from different parties. And while the norms and practices of power-sharing agreements have been hammered out over time, the Fifth Republic has never experienced a National Assembly split into three bitterly-divided blocs. Still, the Constitution makes clear that the power to determine policy [resides](https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/en/constitution-of-4-october-1958) with a government that can win enough support from the National Assembly. As such, it makes sense for France’s left New Popular Front coalition to be the first ones to govern. It has more seats than anyone else and could attempt to form a minority government, focusing on broadly popular measures and appealing to public support for legitimacy. But if a united left coalition fails to withstand the all-but-certain opposition from its foes, some other options may emerge. France may move toward some type of temporary technocratic caretaker government, à la Itay’s Mario Draghi. Or Macronist MPs may try to team up with some elements of the left—though, for now, even the Socialist Party, the most moderate faction of the New Popular Front, has stressed its [opposition](https://www.france24.com/fr/vid%C3%A9o/20240707-olivier-faure-ps-refuse-toute-coalition-des-contraires) toward governing alongside the President’s party. For now, PM Gabriel Attal is [staying on](https://news.sky.com/story/france-election-france-facing-hung-parliament-after-shock-election-result-13174850) until an alternative emerges. Whatever happens in France in the coming days, there is a lesson for the democratic West. If politicians are serious about defeating the far-right, they should steer clear of Macron’s approach and look at what the New Popular Front has managed to accomplish. It’s a simple formula: bread-and-butter measures to improve living standards for France’s working-class majority and relentless hostility toward attempts to demonize immigrants and their descendants. French voters may not have delivered an absolute majority to left-wing parties. But they’ve shown that France, and perhaps voters the world over, want to hear more of what the left has to say. ## Transcript No one expected the result that we saw yesterday. Far right, the National rally was predicted to gain the more seats. Falling short of a majority. Instead, it's the left block that won the most seats. Macon Cris block came second and saved far more seats than again was predicted, and the national rally came third. That was a huge surprise. And I think for anyone not familiar with the French system, it might be puzzling to understand how the far right went from first winning the first round, on the brink of power, to losing and having not as many seats as was anticipated. And the answer to this is this is what can happen with a two round electoral system, especially with a strong Republican front. Now, this is key to understand what happened yesterday. The Republican front means tactical voting against the far right. It looked tired in 2022 with many voters not willing anymore to yet again vote against as opposed to for a candidate. But it came back with a vengeance this time, and that's the main lesson of yesterday that the Republican Front is alive and kicking, and it explains why the National rally did not win. And I would say it really shows that despite the far right being normalized and mainstreamed, it still remains perceived as a danger by enough voters who mobilized to defeat the far right to block the far right from getting power. That's the main takeaway from yesterday. The Victor was not the left block, the real Victor is the Republican front. As for Mac, he will feel relieved, first of all, that the far right is not in power. They won't have to have a cobitation with the far right. That he limited the damage because his Sandra's block came second and didn't lose as many seats as was predicted. However, his gamble to dissolve the National Assembly has spectacularly failed. He wanted clarification from the electorate. He has got an even more fragmented assembly than the one before. He wanted to divide the left, that didn't work. He thought that the vote for the far right was a protest vote. It's not. It's a convection vote. He had power. He had authority. He had a United Party. He had a relative majority. Yes, it was difficult, but he still managed to pass key reforms. And now all that is gone, even his party is turning against him as we saw in yesterday's Prime Minister's address. So he's lost everything, really. He instigated his own effacement, his own asia, and the power now will be in the National Assembly and not with him. So what's next? I generally don't know. I don't think anyone in trance knows. For a very simple reason, there is no absolute majority for anyone. Okay. And if you look at the left block, yes, they want the most seats, but they are roughly 80 to 90 seats short of an absolute majority. That means they will have to find someone to govern with. They can't do it on their own. They can't say we want the election, make me Prime Minister, and we will implement our program. They might say this, but the arithmetic reality means that they can't do it because they don't have enough, they don't have an absolute majority. So I will either be a coalition. The questions here are, who is on which program, what type of coalition, we might end up with a technical government where you put in charge a consensual figure and you wait for a year until the next dissolution because that's the problem. You cannot dissolve the National Assembly for another year. Even if Macron decided to resign, and we have a new president, you will still get the same national assembly. So what's going to happen? I generally don't know. I don't think anyone knows and the next days, the next weeks, we are going to see a lot of chat, formal, informal between parties, and we're going to see whether or not they managed to somehow couple together a coalition, bearing in mind that France is not known for its consensus culture. So it's going to be really interesting, but right now it's blocked. 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