In an age of extremes

(First published on my Substack Out of France)

Snap elections were held on both sides of the Channel earlier this month. In France, 10m people voted for the far-right National Rally (RN) and its allies, more than the 9.7m who backed Britain’s Labour party.

As the two countries have similar population numbers and turnout in France was higher, the RN did even better in terms of percentage of registered voters: 21.6%, against 20.1% for Labour.

The difference in outcome for the respective winners of the popular vote is stark: a sea of MPs for the Labour party, which gets to run a major European power; fewer than a quarter of seats for RN and co, who are relegated to sullen opposition. The National Rally doesn’t even get a single parliamentary committee chairmanship.

Some welcome the party’s marginalisation as an act of democratic resistance. Others decry it as a stitch-up by the establishment and the left. Personally, I think it was both. Everyone says that the last shreds of President Macron’s Olympian presidency are gone and chaotic stalemate reigns. I agree with that too.

Where I differ from most of my compatriots is on the reason for the mess they’re in. The banker-turned-president, the left argues, ruled for the rich. Nonsense: since coming to power in 2017, he has ended mass unemployment; the 2m jobs created have not been precarious; welfare remains ultra-generous and poverty below the euro-zone average.

The right points to lack of reforms. Nonsense: Macron’s overhaul of labour laws has led bosses to hire; 6m businesses have been created; business taxes and stifling wealth taxes have been cut; a stab has finally been made at reforming unsustainable pensions.

Many say the president was punished for his Superman approach to government. One-man rule is undoubtedly fragile — especially when combined with democracy. A leader who promises to fix everything becomes a lightning rod for discontents.

But elective autocracy has been a central feature of France’s Fifth Republic. Previously, this has not led to institutional bedlam, only to one clay-footed potentate replacing another. No president exercising full power had been re-elected before Macron.

The main reason for the current chaos is not the president’s record or style. His disastrous decision to call a snap election was only a proximate cause. There is a more fundamental, albeit underestimated, factor: his initial ambition to recast French politics.

Macron’s breakthrough pitch to voters was that the old left-right split was bunk. Both camps were dominated by time-servers who had failed to resolve France’s entrenched problems: a bloated bureaucracy, ossified labour markets, a broken welfare state, etc.

“Our political life today is structured around an ancient divide that is no longer fit for purpose to meet the challenges of the world and our country,” he wrote in his manifesto book Révolution.

France, Macron said, did not lack for able reformers, but their efforts had been stymied by machine politicians on both sides. Coming from the left himself, he broke ranks with his family and reached out to those moderate conservatives who shared his zest for change.

The future belonged to the middle ground. The notion seemed quixotic at first. Centrists had played only minor parts in government throughout the Fifth Republic. But as mainstream parties fortuitously collapsed ahead of the 2017 election, the campaign gathered steam.

Thanks to his magnetism and youthful energy, Macron was able to attract Social Democrats and centre-right liberals to his bold plan to redraw the political landscape. His election win emboldened him further. In his victory speech Macron, promised to ensure that people “no longer have any reason to vote for the extremes”.

Clearly something has gone wrong. Ten million RN voters is a lot — a third of ballots cast on 7 July, in fact. And if you add the radical La France Insoumise, the dominant party on the left, plus sundry anti-capitalist groups, support for the extremes probably totalled 12.5m.

The obvious flaw with Macron’s vision is that no-one can rule forever. Even if you do the right thing — especially if you do the right thing, perhaps — people will not thank you, but focus on the problems you haven’t solved. Most will simply get tired of seeing your face.

Macron is not responsible for the global rise of national populism or of left-wing identitarianism. But by trying to federate all foes of the above in France, he failed to grasp the importance of rivalry between would-be governing parties for the health of democracy. Such a contest does not guarantee sane rule, as the US and Britain showed in the 2010s. But at least it offers the hope of return to sanity at some point.

By setting himself as the sole repository of reason, Macron reinforced rather than tamed the extremes. It didn’t have to be that way. After his landmark re-election in 2022, he lost his absolute majority in the assembly. As he embarked on his final term in office, he could have used this setback as a chance to prepare for a post-Macron France.

He might, for instance, have decided to put parliament at the centre of decision making, or instituted proportional representation — either would have encouraged warring factions to seek compromise.

Instead, he stuck to rule by a single viable government party. After his side was punished at European elections in June, he snapped and called an early election. Everyone knew it was suicide. But in France it’s the president’s view that counts: when push came to shove, surely his ungrateful people would rally around the only alternative to dangerous radicals.

The trouble when you give people a “me-or chaos” ultimatum is that you may not get the answer you want.