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Written by Uriel Araujo, PhD, anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
Imagine you are a head of state facing a domestic crisis. You bypass vote in the parliament to force unpopular measures through questionable methods (amid major protests), then use excessive violence against the demonstrations. Next, you call snap elections to neutralize radical political dissidents, and lose it. Then, you use a major international sports event to gain more time and just ignore the election results by refusing to name a Prime Minister from the winning coalition.
What are you, then? Some would certainly use the word “dictator” even. It would be hard indeed to describe such a peculiar state of affairs as anything other than a kind of a coup d’état, right? In this case, the international community would certainly denounce the authoritarian head of state and pressure him or her into complying with election results, right? Well, not necessarily so if you are Emmanuel Macron. A quick look at the events may offer a glimpse of the depth of the trouble the French are in.
First, Macron dissolved the Assemblée Nationale and decided to call new legislative elections, on June 30 (and on July 7, for the second round). This was a response to the fact that the right-wing populist party Rassemblement National’s (RN) won the European elections, which in itself was a defeat for the President. RN, formerly known as Front national (until 2018) is the party of Marine Le Pen, who, bear in mind, vowed to pull France out of NATO’s military command in 2022, when she was a (defeated) presidential candidate. Macron won the election back then, but Le Pen was promising this while heading to the second round and certainly raised many eyebrows among Paris’ political Establishment.
As I wrote before, describing the RN party or European populist parties in general as pure and simple “fascism” is not accurate. The French President’s measure in June was in any case a daring move to crush a political group which is seen as a threat. Senator François Patriat, who is an ally of Macron, at the time said: “The president’s back in control. Now he’s taking action. It’s the end of Marine Le Pen.” Many criticized the decision and feared it could backfire and result in France having a “far-right” Prime Minister. This did not happen. But the result was certainly not what Macron was hoping for.
The snap elections, as mentioned, were described as a risky political gamble. Macron lost it. Even though the result was a “hung parliament”, the New Popular Front or Nouveau Front populaire (NFP) did win the larger number of parliamentary seats, which was a humiliating political defeat for the President. Macron himself, however, begs to differ: “no one won”, he has stated. According to him, “The blocs or coalitions that emerged from these elections all represent a minority.” The NFP disputes this: “The New Popular Front is without contest the first force in the new National Assembly”
The new coalition’s programme promises, among other things, to fight the cost-of-living crisis with a price cap, to raise the minimum wage, and to lower the retirement age besides bringing back the wealth tax Macron had abolished.
Keep in mind that last year Macron resorted to quite unorthodox methods to sign his controversial pension reform bill into law, prompting demonstrations nationwide. The government responded with a massive crackdown on demonstrators and journalists, which was denounced by the Council of Europe and by Reporters Without Borders and France’s Human Rights League, among others. The political maneuver to go ahead with the pension reform was described as an intricate constitutional coup, which consisted in forcing the bill (which increased the retirement age) through the Parliament with no vote in the lower house.
France has been under a caretaker administration since the aforementioned July general election, which arguably failed to produce a working majority in the country’s national assembly. This has been a deadlock. And there seems to be no way out of it. On August 26 a Elysée press release said that the President would not name the NFP candidate because: “Institutional stability dictates that this option should not be retained.” The reasoning is that by appointing a Prime Minister that the President supposedly “knows” would “fall”, the head of state would then be “in breach of the Constitution, which requires him to ensure the stability and independence of the country.” The intricacies of the French semi-presidentialist system part, one can clearly see a pattern here.
Macron, if one remembers, called the Paris Olympics a “truce” and used the international event to gain time, but could now be running out of excuses. On Saturday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (leader of far-left party La France Insoumise – LFI) announced LFI members shall not join any NFP government – a scenario including the LFI was supposedly keeping the President from naming Lucie Castets (the NFP candidate) for Prime Minister. Macron’s outgoing Prime Minister has responded by saying that the “unilateral application” of the NFP’s policy platform “would lead to an unprecedented fiscal bludgeoning,” and even to “the economic collapse of our country.” The Elysée is just not having it. The truth is that there seems to be no way Macron is accepting a left-wing government. Meanwhile, the political crisis goes on.
One is left then with the puzzling fact that such a peculiar situation taking place in a G7 country is not getting that much press coverage – or that much criticism for that matter. Comparing it with the ongoing political crisis in Venezuela is enough to make the case that the French affair is indeed being underreported. The double standard in any case goes beyond journalism: Western political leaders coming from all across the political spectrum have denounced Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro over the recent presidential election controversy and many are urging the Venezuelan government to come forward with more transparency about the results and so on. No major Western political leaders thus far have pressured the French head of state into honoring the election’s results by naming a Prime Minister from the winning left-wing coalition. It goes without saying that if Macron were a Global South leader pursuing energy projects in his country or if he were a “pro-China” or “pro-Russian” European head of state, then things would be quite different.
Be it as it may, things are expected to get harder for the French President. The left-wing is now threatening Macron with impeachment procedures no one believes will succeed, but, more importantly, the country faces a political and economic crisis and demonstrations are expected to spread and to become increasingly violent, as is the case in other European countries today. As I wrote, Macron has been pursuing bold foreign policy shifts, but it seems domestic issues may get on the way.
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the little napoleonic fascist dictator from goldman $achs with the transvestite wife has spoken!… and make no mistake… he will be the one pushing the button that will have his entire country destroyed just like the rest of europe and north america when that time “arrives”. if ever there was a need for insurrection before that “arrival” the french people better be dusting off the bastille as the blueprint for making it happen and soon!
his “wife” is not big mike, but old mike. france has been usurped.
‘au nom du poisson!’*
(*) with ‘remerciements’ to ‘powerful pierre’.
holande was at gun point, and then this war criminal came instead of le pen, as in uk corbyn was nazi but that johnson turn uk into rogue state. send some mirages to ukraine failed project of western, usa in the first place ‘christian values’ evangelical lunatucs.
corbyn was a nazi wtf are you barking about?
a communist maybe, but defo not a nazi.
corbyn was pro palestine and that was something the jews in tel aviv and in england could not accept, thus the accusations that labour was infested with anti-semitic individuals was orchestrated by the jews and no one else (although you might suspect that aipac was part of the operation to de-corbyn the party) and note that starmer’s wife is jewish which puts starmer in the center of the operation!
others have pointed out his pivotal role in shooting down inquiries etc into saville and others at the bbc and who knows where else. more jews and freemasons in the center of child trafficking. why is that?
france: one third to the left, one third in the center, one third to the right.
what is your color?
et tous en train de manigancer contre le peuple francais d’une manière ou d’une autre
rn is a right wing racist nazi party. macron is a neocon. i can not understand why russia, or south front would support nazies. i despice every racist, nazi and apartheid zionist even if it was my own mother.
it’s almost like their primaries are a rigged circus of clowns too?
the west has long ago lost any sense of balance, proportion, and restraint as was one time found in the renaissance arts because the west has become greedy and self-absorbed. there is only extreme right and extreme left and they join at the hips. doesn’t matter who you support they want to enslave you.
on a planet of evil filth, you will get what you put up with.
im afgan migrant. i entered germany on juny.last year. my name is hasan ebubekir. i have 6 children cocuki. why germany pays 400 euro for ukraine children but for afghan children pays less 300 euro only. thiz iz not good. our arab children must be 400 euro too. germany will pay me 3000 not 1500 euro. why germany pays 100 euro more for ukraina children . only protest will finish this problem.
the problem is simple : the far left (melanchon) has won the élection by alliance with the green and the socialists. they are as globalist as macron, their only “idea” is to oppose far right. the far left has a massive muslim électoral basis. they hate israël. the party who has really won the popular vote is far right (marine le pen).
not a single other party accepted an alliance with them because their are depicted as evil since decades. jews hate the le pen family as they hate every nationalist goy. so macron is fucked : hé cannot choose a prime minister from a party who hate it’s masters
you are intelligent, i am like you, i like får right because får right (right too) are pro-zionist!
u n dunnit?
fake far right are pro zionist. contrary to his father jean-marie, marine lepen is pro zionist . it’s a bad strategy called “dédiabolisation”….
everyone hates israel.. a nation of shekel-grubbing nazi scum
not everyone hates israel, but everyone sane hates israel.
frenchy turdcron should pack up his great grandmother spouse and fck off out of france. go to greenland parasitic trash.
a very gay, tolerant and democratic coup if might add
there’s a doco on u tube that’s comparable it’s titled, the abominable things mussolini did. something like that nb the symbol of fascism the twigs/ rods tied into a bundle see thrm built into congress from decades ago along with all the masonic egyptian pharaonic glaring screaming at your face signs
yes, and the absurd idolatry of ancient rome and egypt, by the same clowns pimping noahide laws to blasphem christians as idol worshippers, is laughable, their hypocrisy is so blatant, so absurd, so idiotic and has lead to these delusional levels of attrocities we see today. burning these masonic zionists at the stake like the witches they are is too fukken good for them…hang em out in cages like the dogs they are…in full sun.
the rothschild puppets are who we thought they were, lying weasel-fuk satanists. banning freespeech critical of the bioweapons jabs or zionist genocide to protect “our democracy”, which was never anything close to a democracy, whilst wiping due process and international law on their anti-human backsides like the socially arrested, drug addicted homos that they are.
the coup d’état happened in 1793-4, when the girondins (from the slave trading region around bordeaux) defeated the montagnards. the bourgeoisie had taken over the revolution.
the do called democratic west denying election results is just fucking ironic as hell 🤣. why are they so scared of populist parties winning?