Emmanuel Macron will this afternoon host the leaders of France’s political parties as he searches for his fourth prime minister of the year. The last one, Michel Barnier, fell last week after just three months in office.
Not everyone, however, has received an invitation to the Elysée Palace. Marine Le Pen is persona non grata after her National Rally party joined the left-wing coalition in last Wednesday’s vote of no confidence in Barnier’s government.
Macron hasn’t forgiven Le Pen, although he is more conciliatory towards the left-wing parties that conspired to bring down his government. The Communists, the Greens and the Socialists will all enjoy the president’s hospitality this afternoon. Jean-Luc Melenchon’s party, la France Insoumise (LFI), also received an invitation but declined.
One can only marvel at Macron’s chutzpah
The president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, attacked Macron for a ‘disrespect and inelegance that are mind-boggling’. In private Bardella and Le Pen will be delighted with the snub.
It confirms the National Rally as the only true party of opposition to Macron, the only party deemed unworthy of hearing the president’s pearls of wisdom on how to extricate the country from the chaos he caused last June by calling a snap election.
In shunning the National Rally, Macron is also reinforcing his reputation as a petulant president, and a hypocrite.
Last Saturday he stood in front of the renovated Notre Dame cathedral and spoke eloquently of a ‘proud and united France’. Today he will ignore the voices of millions of Frenchmen and women.
In the first round of June’s parliamentary elections, 9.1 million ballots (28.4 per cent of the vote) were cast for the National Rally. Macron’s Renaissance party received the second highest number, 4 million (12.5 per cent), and la France insoumise were third with 3.4 million votes (10.5 per cent).
How can Macron hope to unite France with any future government that doesn’t include the votes of 12.4 million people? Le Pen’s party polled best among blue collar workers (51 per cent compared to 23 per cent for LFI and 11 per cent for Renaissance) and among the least affluent – 41 per cent compared to 33 per cent for LFI and 11 per cent for Renaissance. Among the most affluent, Macron scored the best – 33 per cent compared to 22 per cent for Le Pen.
Macron describes today’s summit at the Elysée as an opportunity to create ‘a government of national interest’. What a laughable description of a meeting that excludes two of the three most popular political parties in France. Asked about the ostracism of the National Rally and la France insoumise, an Elysée spokesperson said that only parties who had ‘placed themselves in a framework of compromise’ were wanted.
One can only marvel at Macron’s chutzpah, a president who with a straight face can talk gravely about ‘national interest’ and ‘compromise’. He has never shown any inclination to compromise during his seven years in office and he refuses to take any responsibility for the shambles that France has become during his administration.
In an address to the country last Thursday, Macron declaredd that he ‘won’t shoulder other people’s irresponsibility’. He then lashed out at the ‘extremes’ which had brought down Barnier’s government. They chose ‘not to do, but to undo’, said the president. ‘They chose disorder.’
This is the same man who the day after calling the snap election in June was heard to boast ‘I’ve thrown my hand grenade at them. Now we’ll see how they get on’.
Macron’s objective this afternoon is to cobble together a coalition of centrists from his Renaissance party, the centre-left Socialists, the centre-right Republicans and the Greens. What have these forces in common? Their voters are overwhelmingly bourgeois, and white.
The majority of France’s estimated six million Muslims – approximately 62 per cent – vote for the LFI, as do significant numbers of the urban working class. The provincial working-class support Le Pen.
These people will have no representation in Macron’s next government. Blame your leaders, says the president, the ‘extreme left’ and the ‘extreme right’. But the damage to France’s democracy this year has been inflicted by the third ‘extreme’ – Macron’s extreme centre.
He applied this term to his presidency during a radio interview in 2022, and one could argue that this year he has behaved like an extremist. He ignored the result of the legislative election and he is now ignoring two of the three biggest parties in France.
Macron isn’t the president of France, he is the president of an affluent bourgeois fringe of France.
Comments