Left and its ecosystem often claim to be democratic while aiming for dictatorial monopoly of ideas. The recently concluded French elections for National Assembly is the biggest example of the way this ecosystem subverts democracy. Is this a democracy where two opposite ideological alliances of liberals and Left withdraw hundreds of candidates just days before the elections? Where is the morality when two different ideologies manipulate the democratic process after the first round of elections to defeat the third party?
French President Emmanuel Macron, who represents Renaissance (RE) which is part of the Ensemble liberal coalition, went for early legislative elections in the country. According to France 24 report, Macron’s surprise move to dissolve the lower house of Parliament came seeing the outcome of European parliamentary polls that saw Le Pen’s National Rally triumph with over 30 per cent of the vote – more than double the support for Macron’s party. During this election campaign, Marine Le Pen-led National Rally (RN) undoubtedly was in an advantageous position to get the popular mandate. Even her party had clear lead in the first round of elections on June 30 (France conducts elections in two rounds).
How French legislative elections is conducted?
The 577 members of the National Assembly in France, which are known as deputies, are elected for five years by a two-round system in single-member constituencies. A candidate who receives an absolute majority of valid votes with more than 25 per cent of the registered electorate is elected in the first round. If no candidate reaches this threshold, a runoff election is held between the top two candidates plus any other candidate who received a vote total greater than 12.5% of registered voters. Candidate who receives the most votes in the second round is elected. A consequence of the 12.5 per cent threshold was the potential for three-way runoffs, also referred to as triangular, in a more significant number of constituencies in the second round in the event of higher turnout and a diminished number of candidates, as was anticipated to be the case in 2024 relative to previous legislative elections. Such a dynamic reinforced the likelihood that higher turnout became an advantage for the National Rally, which received a clear plurality of the vote in pre-first round polls and, as a result would be expected to win a greater share of seats due to the increased number of three-way races in the second round, not accounting for the possibility of
candidate withdrawals.
However, to stop her from coming to power, more than 200 candidates, primarily from French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp, Ensemble and the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance quit the French election race in the second round, which was scheduled to take place on July 7. Both the alliances did this to prevent the splitting of the anti-right votes. Both these alliances did so as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (NR) emerged as the clear frontrunner with 34 per cent votes in the first round of elections, leaving President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp (20.3%) trailing in third place behind a quickly assembled Left-wing alliance (28%). This last moment deal between NFP and Ensemble finally succeeded in stopping Le Pen from leading the country in the second round by securing 188 and 166 seats respectively. Le Pen’s NR managed to get 142 seats. As a result, no political party alliance managed to cross the majority mark, which is 289. However, France is likely to have NFP and Ensemble Alliance Government. The most interesting part is that NR has received the highest percentage of votes, which is 37.1 per cent and other two political formations NFP and Ensemble received 26.3 per cent and 24.7 per cent respectively.
Blot on democratic system – “Supari politics”
Here it is worth mentioning that had more than 200 candidates from NFP and Ensemble, not withdrawn in the midway, more than 306 seats would have witnessed three-way fights and two-way fights on 190 seats. However, due to the last moment deal between Left and Liberal alliances, , the number of two-way fights increased to 409 seats and three-way fights reduced to only on 89 seats. And here the Le Pen’s NR had to face setback as NFP and Ensemble managed to consolidate anti-NR votes even though the far-right nationalist alliance secured the highest vote percentage.
Catastrophic Gamble
MR Macron’s gamble did not pay off. On the contrary, it is a catastrophe for France because no party has a majority. And the party that won most seats in these legislative elections, is a coalition of different groups that are pulling in different directions. For instance, the Communists, who are an important parts of that coalition, will be against the Ukraine war, because they are pro-Russian, pro-Soviet. The ecologists, also part of this coalition; will be against nuclear power, which is the main source of electricity in France. Some of the parties are also violently anti-Jewish – & I am talking about white politicians; who are closely associated with Hamas, have never condemned the massacre of the October 7, 2023 and are propagating anti jewishness in France. So not only politically, but socially and economically, France is going to be affected, being a major partner of the United Europe, it is going to come down in the eyes of many. Now it is absolutely untrue that this, what they call the far right party, is a Nazi party. Whatever you think about it, they have never killed, raped, burnt babies like Islamic terrorists. Mrs Le Pen has never gone down the street, and bombed other people or kidnapped planes. So the labels that have been applied to this far extremist party by all kinds of liberal, Leftists, ultra-Leftists, ecologists, are absolutely wrong. But it managed to whip up a large number of French people to vote for this motley collation. Yet, I think it is inevitable that some of these far right parties will come to power in Europe as they did in Italy and Austria. Because Europeans are fed up with the wild Islamic immigration that is happening all the time. France itself is allowing thousands and thousands of immigrants and giving them social security, dole, subsidies. Also, this Hamas-Israel war has deeply divided France because many French people do not understand why France doesn’t officially condemn Hamas.
— Francois Gautier, French Journalist
Key issues during election campaign
Issues like inflation and the cost of living, security, defence and NATO membership, defence spending as a percentage of GDP, environment, and impact of Covid-19 on France, were the issues that had clear impact on the outcome of election results. Besides this, the immigration and growing Islamic radicalism and anti-semiticism were the issues that remained point of discussion during the French Legislative election.
Instablity
Macron has given a call for formation of Government based on ‘Republical Values”. Though it would be interesting to see the next step by President Macron as no political party has got the mandate. However, French President Emmanuel Macron (at the time of writing this story) asked Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to retain post “for the time being to ensure the country’s stability”. Attal, who led Macron’s Ensemble in the election campaign, had handed his resignation to the President on July 8 which is not accepted by the President. The Paris Olympics is around the corner and France has entered the unprecedented era of instability and uncertainty.
Contradiction in Alliance
Even if Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp comes with NFP, he will have to face many challenges in future. First, NFP has pledged to “immediately recognise” a Palestinian state and will push for Israel and Hamas to ceasefire in Gaza. On the other hand, after the Hamas attack, Macron expressed Paris’s full support for Israel’s right to defend itself as the Eiffel Tower was lit up in the colours of the Israeli flag.
Secondly, NFP campaigned on an expansive economic platform, promising to raise the minimum monthly wage to 1,600 euros (more than $1,700) and to cap the price of essential foods, electricity, fuel and gas. But the fact is that the economic condition of France is deteriorating and the country is facing recession-like situation. This has worsened more due to Russia-Ukraine war as these both countries are big source of energy. Thirdly, NFP has also pledged to scrap Macron’s pension reform that raised the French retirement age – one of the lowest in the Western world – from 62 to 64. Therefore, this is also going to create problem between both of these coalition if they run the Government together.
Islamist-Leftist Bonhomie
Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of La France Insoumise and the leader of NFP, has been accused of playing into the antisemitic stereotypes’ in his political career. As a result of this, his party has been getting support of Muslims across the France. Here, it is important to mention that in 2022 elections, 69 per cent of Muslims supported Melenchon. Notably, Muslim community in France grew from one million in the early seventies to more than 7 million in 2024, owing to much higher communal birth rates than the French national average, massive legal and illegal immigration from Arab countries, West Africa, Turkey and conversions.
Violence across France post result
Clashes in Paris : In Paris, some demonstrators clashed with law enforcement officers, leading the police to use tear gas. Wooden barricades were set on fire. Many shops and banks in the center of Paris had boarded up their windows on election day in anticipation of possible unrest, as reported by Der Spiegel.
Lille: In the northern city of Lille, demonstrators clashed with police, who used tear gas to
disperse the crowd.
Rennes: In Rennes, western France, riot police arrested 25 people after using tear gas against left-wing demonstrators chanting “Everyone hates the police.”
Nantes: A police officer was injured by a Molotov cocktail in Nantes, where demonstrators also threw fireworks at security forces. The evening began with jubilant scenes at Place de Bretagne, where thousands of left-wing activists had gathered, but ended with clashes and violence from radical and masked demonstrators. The Left-wing coalition’s victory brought thousands of people into the streets, but the celebrations were marred by violence in several cities.
Keeping this in mind, one can say that it would be a litmus test for Macron’s centrist camp to deal with Jean-Luc Melenchon if it decides to go ahead with the coalition. The French President has taken some stringent action against the radical Islamists, which would be difficult for him to do in coalition with Melenchon. In 2020, Macron described Islam as “a religion in crisis” and announced plans for tougher laws to tackle “Islamist separatism” in France. In December 2020, Macron-led French Government announced a crackdown on 76 mosques that the government suspects of “separatism” and encouraging extremism. Will Melenchon allow any action against Islamists if Macron’s centrist camp joins him? The most likely scenario is ‘no’.
Having said this, the result of French elections categorically points out how radical Left with the help of Islamists is subverting democracy and distorting democratic values across the world. Mass withdrawal of more than 200 candidates by the Left and Liberal coalitions to defeat Le Pen puts a question mark over the model of democracy in France? Why liberals are allowing the Left-Islamist alliance to flourish when both the ideologies stand for illiberal values is the critical question. World over Left academia and intellectuals are taking over the liberal space and protecting Islamist accesses against ‘republican values’. Will the true liberals wake up to this game plan and respond to this game of using democracy to undermine democracy and create the ground for either ‘communist revolution’ or ‘Islamist Jihad’?
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