Macron’s gamble

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the fallout from European parliamentary elections.

Earlier this week, citizens of the European Union voted for their representatives to the EU parliament in Brussels. And results are a marked swing to the right.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: In the wake of those gains for the right, French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved France’s National Assembly, which is its parliament.

That triggers an election later this month. So why would Macron do that?

Breaking it all down for us is WORLD’s Global Desk Chief, Jenny Lind Schmitt.

REICHARD: Good morning, Jenny!

JENNY LIND SCHMITT: Good morning!

REICHARD: Ok, Jenny, can you explain the difference between the EU election and the one Macron is triggering in France?

SCHMITT: Well, first, it's really important to understand we're talking here about two different parliamentary elections for two different legislative bodies at two different levels.

The first election that was held last week was the election for the EU Parliament in Brussels. Now, each EU country sends a number of representatives based on their population to the EU Parliament, and those representatives vote on policy for the entire European bloc. And then the National Assembly is France's own domestic parliament.

As a very, very loose metaphor. You can think about it as the way in U.S. states, we vote for state representatives in our state capital, and we also vote for congressmen and congresswomen to represent our state in Washington, D.C.

REICHARD: Okay, so two different elections. But how do they connect? One triggered the other, right?

SCHMITT: Right. First of all, Europeans tend to use these EU Parliament elections as a referendum for their national leaders, and the message to Macron was very clear: people are unhappy with his policies, both his pro-EU agenda and his domestic policies.

In the EU elections, France's national rally party won 31% of the vote, and that was compared with Macron party, which only got 15% of the vote.

REICHARD: Do you think some of this reaction against Macron is fallout from last year’s fiasco with pension reform?

SCHMITT: Oh, definitely. As you'll recall, the first part of last year, there were massive protests and strikes against Macron raising the retirement age to relieve state finances. It was massively unpopular. In the end, his government pushed through the change, but using a procedural vote, and many people, including Marine Le Pen of national rally, criticized him for that, calling it undemocratic. So this week, Macron spoke about how democratic he's being in calling for new elections. He says he's heard the voice of voters in the EU elections, and now they must be heard in national elections.

REICHARD: Okay, so back to what Macron did this week, what does it mean that he dissolved the National Assembly? Is that a nuclear option or business as usual?

SCHMITT: It just means sending the 577 parliament representatives home, and holding new elections for their seats. Since the beginning of the 5th Republic (that is the French Republic after World War II), there’s only five instances of the president dissolving parliament. The last time was in 1997 under Jacques Chirac because people were so dissatisfied with his Prime Minister.

REICHARD: So what is Macron concerned about that he’s taking this gamble?

SCHMITT: I think he's mainly concerned about Marine Le Pen. She ran against him in the 2022 presidential election, and Le Pen has worked really hard to change her party's image over the past couple decades, from a fringe party to one that's palatable to the majority, and that has been happening. Many voters still see Le Pen and the National Rally as a far right party, and I think that's something Macron is counting on in these legislative elections.

I've already mentioned, in the EU elections, people often vote further left or further right than they would in national elections, so it's possible that Macron wants to force people to reckon with whether or not they really want Le Pen's party in government, and if that's the case, he may already be losing that gamble.

The leaders of Les Republicains which it's a center right Conservative Party, they've already indicated in the last couple days that they'd be willing to cut a deal with Le Pen if her party wins the National Assembly elections. And this is a huge break from the past.

Turnout for the EU elections in France was 45% and I think Macron is betting, and I think we're going to see a much larger voter participation on June 30 and then in the second round on July 7.

REICHARD: Why would Macron risk losing control of Parliament by calling these snap elections?

SCHMITT: It may be a strategic move on the part of Macron. Let me just back up here and explain these legislative elections had been scheduled for in 2027 for a five year term. But for the past several election cycles, both the presidential and the legislative elections have been held around the same time, just a few months apart, but now the terms will be staggered.

That means the next presidential election will be in 2027 but the next legislative elections will be in 2029, so Macron may be hoping that whatever momentum Le Pen and National Rally have going into these legislative elections will have lost steam by the time the French vote for a new president in 2027.

REICHARD: Jenny Lind Schmitt is WORLD’s Global Desk chief, based in Switzerland. Thanks so much.

SCHMITT: You’re welcome!

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