08 July 2024

Chatham House's Maillard: Four far-reaching consequences of France’s shock election result

The far right RN may have failed to take power, but France’s political institutions, its place in the world, its financial position and its fragmented society will all be affected by a hung parliament.

The snap parliamentary elections that concluded on 7 July were called by President Emmanuel Macron to regain the upper hand after his party’s weak performance in June’s European Parliamentary elections. 

Yet the outcome has achieved the contrary, creating political mayhem that has undermined the president’s power and shaken the foundations of the Fifth Republic as never before. 

A feared victory for Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party did not materialize, with the left wing ‘New Popular Front’ alliance holding the most seats. But no party has achieved a majority.

The dust has far from settled but four valuable conclusions can already be drawn.

French institutions

France’s politics will be less presidential, putting the Fifth Republic under serious stress: it has been based on a powerful head of state since its foundation by De Gaulle.  

As if he was anticipating this, President Macron made as many ambassadors, prefects and senior civil servant appointments as possible ahead of the election’s second round on 7 July, apparently expecting he would have to share power from then on. The Fifth Republic will look more like the Fourth, which relied on the parliament and was famous for its unstable and fragile governing coalitions.

The future government will be derived, however long it may take to form, from the newly elected National Assembly and not be shaped mainly by the Elysée, as its predecessors have been. The choice of a new prime minister able to command a stable majority will be imposed on the president out of the ranks of his Renaissance party, which performed better than expected. 

Until now, Macron has always picked any head of government he wanted. The ‘Popular Front’ alliance of left-wing parties, which gained the most seats in the second round, now considers itself to be in a position to govern, although it is far from securing an absolute majority and must address internal divisions and power struggles. 

With much pressure from the left, a new kind of cohabitation is in the making. In past cohabitations – in 1986 and 1993 under François Mitterrand and in 1997 under Jacques Chirac – the power struggle was between the Elysée and Matignon, the seat of the prime minister. 

This time, the political centre of gravity will lie at the National Assembly. It cannot be dissolved again before July 2025 and will control the fate of any cabinet until then at least. 

Thus, the president’s authority has waned. With two severe electoral blows in one month, his party divided, hostile public opinion and the constitutional constraint of not being able to stand for another term, President Macron’s political capital is shattered for the short- to medium-term – unless he succeeds in splitting the left and manages to keep his party in a minor but key role in a future coalition....

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