Following the ambiguous result of the legislative elections on July 7th, which sent three opposing blocs to the French National Assembly without any of them achieving a sufficient majority to govern, President Emmanuel Macron published a lengthy “Letter to the French” on Wednesday, July 10th. In it, he explained that he was postponing the appointment of a new government and hoped in the long term to rely on a “plural” compromise majority.
After congratulating himself on the high turnout in the legislative elections—as proof that the French are not losing interest in politics—the president attempted to decipher the messages contained in the election results: a far-right that came out on top in the first round (but he fails to specify that it also came first in terms of number of votes in the second round), which, he claims, the French refused to bring to power (mainly because of the voting system that favours alliances and withdrawals).
Macron then insisted on the existence of “republican forces”—a term covering all political parties except the Rassemblement National (RN) and the extreme Left—that he wants to believe could form an absolute majority by banding together. He is thus clearly closing the door on the demands of the New Popular Front (NFP) to form the government. The NFP, an alliance between all the left-wing and far-left parties, won the most seats and therefore considers itself to be the most legitimate to form the new government—even though it won only 7 million votes and has made virtually no progress in terms of seats since the previous election.
The head of state then called on “all the political forces to engage in sincere and loyal dialogue in order to build a solid majority, necessarily a plural one, for the country.” He refuses to see the ‘Republican Front’ as a negative political project—i.e., rejecting the RN—and instead wants to see it as the matrix for a new centrist policy: “What the French people have chosen at the ballot box—the Republican Front, the political forces must put into practice through their actions,” he explained.
He is therefore in favour of continuing, under a different name, the centrist policy he has pursued until now, based on a relative majority with occasional support from the Left or the centre-right depending on the issue—on the Right for immigration, on the Left for societal demands such as abortion or euthanasia.
Under this roadmap, the president has not yet chosen the next prime minister: “Until then, the current government will continue to exercise its responsibilities and will then be in charge of current affairs,” he explained in the letter.
Macron’s letter has been greeted with a great deal of scepticism by the entire French political class, which highlights the president’s disconnection from the seriousness of the issues at stake.
Within his own camp, some ministers are calling for a clean break and an end to the current government. Left-wing parties are accusing the president of wallowing in “denial” and refusing to accept his defeat. They describe his governance as “brutal” and “arrogant.”
The RN is equally critical. Marine Le Pen denounced Macron’s actions as an “outrageous circus,” and the cynicism of Emmanuel Macron’s game with the Left:
“If I understand correctly, in his letter, Emmanuel Macron proposes to block LFI, which he helped to elect three days ago,” she quipped on X.
Jordan Bardella, meanwhile, accused the president of organising “the paralysis of the country.”
“You called for the invention of a new French political culture. On your behalf, I will be its guarantor,” concluded Emmanuel Macron.
The president’s interpretation of the vote augurs many more weeks of crisis.