The populist who may be the next Prime Minister of France decries the “alliance of dishonour” after President Macron said to back left wing candidates to keep the right out of power, contradicting his own claim of just days before that voting for either left or right would lead France into “civil war”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, reeling from his very substantial defeat at the French elections on Sunday and now preparing for the decider round in five days’ time says in some areas, his faction should throw its weight behind left-wing candidates to keep the right out. Justifying this enormous volte-face from his position just last week that voting for either left or right would lead to “civil war”, President Macron said: “We must make no mistake. It is the far-Right that is on its way to the highest office, no one else”.
Macron’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal buttressed this new position, saying the rainbow coalition of left wing parties contesting the election as a bloc aren’t in a position to hold an absolute majority in the parliament, but the right-wing populists of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) are, so they should be opposed most strongly.
28-year-old Jordan Bardella, the soberly dressed RN lead candidate for these elections who would be the next Prime Minister of France if the party managed to get enough seats on Sunday, dismissed the cynical positioning of the Macron camp on Monday evening, calling it an “alliance of dishonour”. The only choices the French people now have is a majority for the left or a majority for the right, he said, stating the public should vote accordingly and disregard Macron’s views and the “unnatural alliance” suggested.
“The French are not fooled”, Bardella said, and reminded voters of the left-wing bloc that they: “comes to the aid of a violent far-left movement, which calls for insurrection, feeds an anti-Semitism atmosphere since October 7, never has words to condemn the atrocities of Hamas, and wants against all odds to organize disorder in French society.”
The question remains whether the right-wing populist RN group can actually get an outright majority. Per the projections issued after polling day — which given the complexity of the French electoral system have a very large margin for error — the party could either scrape total control of the house or fall a handful of seats short, in which case a coalition of some form would be the only way forward.
Yet the RN is short of friends in French politics, and perhaps the only party that could be persuaded to try a tie-up post-vote is the legacy Republicans, once a major force in French politics but now relegated to a desultory ten per cent and a handful of seats. And an attempt to forge a pre-election alliance between the parties in increase their chances already tore the party apart, with its legal leader Eric Ciotti now euphemistically described as “disputed” in the post as some were so furious he suggested cooperation they attempted a coup against him.
Weeks later, who has control over the party’s social media and even who has the keys to Paris headquarters is up in the air. Nevertheless, Ciotti has spoken out to express his disgust at the prospect of President Macron allying with the far-left to crush the right. He said: “The Macron-Mélenchon alliance is being written before the amazed eyes of millions of French people.”
Meanwhile, dozens of deals are being done across France on individual races. In some cases, even quite senior politicians including serving cabinet ministers are standing down to give others who scored more highly in the first round a clear run at beating Le Pen’s RN. One such case is Macronist Dominique Faure, the minister for Communities and Rural Affairs, who only came third in her constituency on Sunday and is throwing her support behind a socialist to beat the first place RN this coming weekend.
Explaining the decision, Faure said she had been asked to stand down by President Macron himself.