Were the Paris Olympics just the start of France's political race?

Looking out on the Stade de France after an Olympic Games which surprised even the most optimistic French hopes, Emmanuel Macron should have been basking in the warm glow of a job well done. Paris was a dream host; for all the apocalyptic warnings of transport chaos and a ‘closed’ city, what emerged was perhaps the most aesthetically appealing Games of all time. Your correspondent even experienced not just efficient but friendly service at a service continu brasserie, which perhaps reflects the feel-good vibe which enveloped both Paris and France at large as the Republic showed off the best of itself.

But for Macron and for French politics, the end of the Games marked the end of the holiday; with the passing of the torch to Los Angeles (and a two week break before the Paralympics) came the hard work of forming a government out of the carnage of the country’s recent parliamentary elections. 

To recap: Macron, who has spent years facing off against the right-wing Front Nationale (FN), responded to the latter’s strong but not spectacular showing in June’s European election with a snap parliamentary election. The logic of this has been disputed; some say Macron wanted to trap the FN in a ‘put up or shut up’ election that would see Marine Le Pen, the FN’s leader, lose her momentum in her run for Macron’s own job in 2027 when he is obliged to step down. Others argue he felt the only way to negate the power of the FN was to put them in charge of the parliament, hope the whole affair turned into a débâcle complet, and leave them unable to campaign effectively in that same 2027 presidential election against Macron’s hand-picked successor. 

Whatever the logic was, it didn’t work. The first round of the parliamentary assembly election left the FN in pole position; the second saw the right-wing, anti-immigration, Euro-troubled party knocked into third place by the New Popular Front (NPF), an elastic-loose coalition of left-wing French parties that did a deal with the second-place centrists of Emmanuel Macron’s alliance, Ensemble, not to stand against each other. The resulting mess leaves the NPF as the largest coalition in the French parliament and therefore should be capable of forcing Macron to appoint their choice of prime minister and then form something like a functioning parliamentary.

Alas the NPF has proved incapable of that task, seemingly unable to agree on the day of the week or the lunchtime digestif let alone select a consensus candidate. On the right, meanwhile, the historic Conservative party Les Republicains has been torn apart by its leader Eric Ciotti’s decision to ally it with Le Pen’s FN, a call that would have seen him booted out of the role except for the fact that he locked the party’s offices from the inside to ensure his colleagues couldn’t vote in a key meeting – all captured on live TV. Deposed anyway by other means, he got his job back thanks to a Paris court which decreed his ouster illegal. 

In short, while Leon Marchand shone in the pool and Paris glinted in the eventual sunshine, the country’s politics are anything but beautiful. What happens next? 

CERTAIN UNCERTAINTY

As The Economist’s understated leader column on the election described it, France has a “weak culture of political compromise.” The idea of convivial negotiations over a pouilly-fumé in the gardens of the presidential palace is for the birds. For one thing, Macron is dead-set against the appointment of NPF leader Jean-Luc Melechon, whose economic prescriptions for the country make Jeremy Corbyn look like a Thatcherite and would, if implemented, signal an exodus of high earners and capital from the country. That being the case, Macron must find an alternative. This will require some imagination: among other pre-Olympic gambits, the president wrote to the ‘people of France’ asking them to ask their non-extremist politicians to come together to form a centrist coalition, the odds of which are not considered high. In reality, we are heading for deadlock, possibly with a technocrat caretaker in place as prime minister – a conclusion which would leave almost everybody unhappy, but at least unhappy equally, which may now be the best Macron can hope for.

Arguments about Macron’s legacy will have to wait. In truth, he’s been an effective leader on the global stage; France’s economy has ridden the waves of the pandemic and inflation with relative success, and though still somewhat corporatist in nature there are more signs of entrepreneurial giants emerging than in decades past. A deeply controversial move to bump up the pension age, and start the process of normalising the future-facing public finances, survived mass protest. His international standing remains significant, and France’s status around global top tables is no doubt enhanced. 

What does deadlock entail? In short, certain uncertainty. It would be a brave investor who would look at the country and press the button on major capital spend when a further snap election or an extreme-right or extreme-left government – or perhaps even president, come 2027 – are well within the range of possible outcomes. No number of sepia-tinted aerial shots of the late summer Parisian skyline will change the country’s risk factor. The CAC-40, an index of France’s top stocks, is down 10 per cent since Macron’s announcement of the election.

Just as in the Olympics, there will be winners and losers. The contrast between French confusion and political certainty across the channel is apparent, for one thing. On his purchase of a quarter of BT’s stock, Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal said the deal represented “a vote of confidence in the UK as an attractive global destination for investment, with a stable business and policy environment attractive for long-term investors”. In a global race for investment, the UK may well be the biggest beneficiary of Macron’s misstep. 

Andy Silvester is the former editor of City AM.