The end of the French exception

PARIS — Ingouvernable has become the buzzword in France to describe the country after its chaotic snap election, which no party won.

For days, politicians and commentators have worried that none of the country’s three major political blocs has an absolute majority in parliament. They raised the specter of political deadlock that threatens to paralyze the country’s administration and hit financial markets. 

In many other EU countries, however, this period of post-election uncertainty is just business as usual for frontline politicians. The question is whether the French political elites have what it takes to join them.

President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election in June in a bid to stop the surge of the far-right National Rally, which triumphed at the EU vote.

His risky gamble didn’t entirely pay off: While Marine Le Pen’s party lost the election and a far-right government is not on the cards in the short term, the most seats went to the left-wing New Popular Front bloc, which includes the party of veteran far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Macron’s own camp came in second place.

As none of the three political blocs won enough seats to form a government, parties have no choice but to start talking about forming alliances. That’s a rare exercise in French politics, where compromises with political opponents are usually denounced as betrayal.

French election final results

“You called for the invention of a new French political culture,” Macron wrote in a letter to the French public, in which he called for a broad coalition. “Like so many of our European neighbors, our country must be able to live up to the spirit of overcoming [personal interests] that I have always called for.”

In France, that’s a hard task. 

“France’s political elite finds this very difficult because it has unlearned how to share power, to make compromises and form coalitions,” said Joseph de Weck, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute think tank. “For France this is an ungovernable parliament, in other European countries this is just a normal parliament like any other,” he added.

The final frantic days of the election campaign were marked by an unusual level of cooperation.

Le Pen’s National Rally won the first round of voting and seemed set for power if it could replicate the result in round two. In order to defeat Le Pen, Macron’s centrist camp and the left-wing alliance reluctantly resolved to join forces in the second round of voting: Each side withdrew their weaker candidates in an attempt to unite the anti-Le Pen vote behind a single nominee. It worked.

But the tactical cooperation was strictly time-limited. The president’s centrists and the left-wingers are already fighting again, showing that a power-sharing pact between the two won’t be easy to find.

Macron’s centrist liberals and the France Unbowed movement, which is the biggest party in the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, have opposite views on all major policy issues, from the economy to Israel’s war against Hamas. 

The president’s centrists and the left-wingers are already fighting again, showing that a power-sharing pact between the two won’t be easy to find. | Christophe Simon/AFP via Getty Images

Negotiations and coalition governments are the bread and butter of democracy in most EU countries and France might have to take inspiration from its neighbors. 

“This election could mark the end of a French exception,” said Gilles Gressani from the French think tank Groupe d’études géopolitiques, noting that “France is the only EU country, along with Malta and Hungary, that has not had a coalition government in the past ten years.” 

Picking prime ministers

The major task for France’s new, fragmented political system is to identify an individual who could serve as prime minister and assemble a functioning government that will be able to pass laws in the National Assembly.

The left-wing New Popular front claims the right to propose the next prime minister because it won the most seats in the election. While some in Macron’s camp are betting on divisions within the left-wing camp to form an alliance with its more center-left representatives, other heavyweights like Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin would prefer an alliance with the right-wing Republicans.

These negotiations are almost uncharted territory for France, where the constitution and the two-round majoritarian electoral systems usually make sure that parliamentary elections result in a clear majority, typically one that’s aligned with the president’s agenda.

But this election showed the limits of the system. “It is the first time that we have such a fragmentation of the National Assembly, such an uncertainty on the name of the prime minister,” said Julien Bonnet, president of the French Constitutional law association. 

So-called cohabitation, where a president and the government are from rival political camps, is an exception that has not occurred in the past 20 years.

In 2022, when Macron lost an absolute majority in parliament for the first time, he still managed to appoint a prime minister from his political camp. But last Sunday his bloc came second in the election, meaning that it will be hard for him to appoint a friendly PM.

While it’s up to the president to appoint the prime minister, Macron will have to pick someone who can count on the parliament’s support and therefore take into account the outcome of negotiations and compromises between parties. 

“Legally speaking, there are no instructions” on the president’s role in these negotiations, said Bonnet, the constitutional law professor. In practice, Macron is “unlikely to play a mediation role” as he “has little political margin of maneuver” after losing the election, he added.

In Germany, the chancellor personally leads negotiations with other parties. In some countries, such as Italy, the president organizes consultations with party leaders to understand which potential prime minister could secure a majority in parliament.

Macron’s ally François Bayrou believes something similar should happen in France: The president, not parties, should break the deadlock by picking a compromise PM, he said.

In practice, Emmanuel Macron is “unlikely to play a mediation role” as he “has little political margin of maneuver” after losing the election, he added. | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

The trouble is Macron himself might not be the ideal mediator. He arrived at the Elysée as an outsider backed by his own new political movement and has frequently been criticized as an aloof figure.

In his letter to the French last week, Macron made clear that he would only appoint a prime minister backed by a “solid, necessarily plural” coalition, as he called for “calm and respectful” efforts to seek compromise.

“This means giving the political forces a little time,” he said.

Mélenchon was quick to slam Macron’s message as a “royal veto” to prevent the left from ruling France.

Voting reform

For some, fragmentation in the National Assembly shows that France’s electoral system is no longer fit for purpose.

Under the current two-round voting system, the candidate who gets the most votes in the second round run-off vote in a given constituency wins the parliamentary seat.

This tends to polarize the political debate by asking voters to choose between candidates in run-offs, who were not necessarily their first choice. The goal of this first past the post voting system is to make sure that the political forces with the most support can win a parliamentary majority needed to rule.

This time things didn’t work that way, reopening the debate on whether France should instead adopt a proportional vote system, where smaller parties are better represented, as happens at European Parliament elections and in countries such as the Netherlands, for example.

Voting reform has made it onto the French parliamentary agenda before but never been passed. If the current, bad-tempered negotiations are a guide, the day France embraces the European art of coalition compromise still feels a long way off.