 |
| Macron's ascendancy consumed the parties of social democrats and social liberals, reducing them to a sliver of seats. Will they be represented in his En Marche majority? If Macron doesn't give enough thought to them, the Left opposition will look to build progressive alliances under his left-wing. |
Emmanuel Macron has completed what he set out to do. He has won the Presidency and an Assembly majority riding the crest of his new movement 'La Republic En Marche'. However, the poor turnout suggests all is not yet what it appears.
Macron and En Marche won a landslide, yes. But the wave of disaffection was greater still. In the two rounds of voting, just 49% and 43% of the people voted. Macron has a majority in the Assembly, but not yet in the country. Far from it.
That disparity will only make it harder and more desperate, not easier, to win people over. The pressure is now tangible. Macron has to deliver - and not just his own programme. He has to deliver it in a way that meets with public expectation.
People are already disaffected, with turnouts low, and the call for people to rally about the Centrist candidate has not exactly been answered - regardless how it has been portrayed by those excited by a pro-European Centre revival.
Macron's Centrist success also came largely at the expense of the Centre-Left, practically wiping it out save for those who aligned with En Marche.
Leading figures in the social democratic 'Parti Socialiste' lost their seats as the the party was nearly wiped out, reduced from 280 to just 29 seats. The Left-wing Presidential candidate Benoit Hamon and Assembly leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis were defeated - though former Premier Manuel Valls survived, standing as an independent.
Social democracy also managed to take social liberalism down with it. The 'Parti Radical de Gauche', their social liberal allies, lost all but three of their seats, though their leader Sylvia Pinel survived. It is worthy of note that three more radicals survived under the En Marche banner.
That poses an interesting question. How much of these ideologies was carried over to La Republic En Marche? Progressives will be watching closely for the answer.
In the mean time, there are questions of how to go about forming a progressive opposition. The main opposition will be the Centre-Right 'La Republicains'. They also suffered a defeat, though less damaging, and along with their allies dropped to 131 seats.
In opposition on the Left, Social democrats and social liberals are now present only in small numbers - in terms of their traditional, recognisable forms. Their supporters may be forced to look to En Marche and their MoDem allies in government for representation.
There is now, though, the possibility of a clear democratic socialist caucus in opposition. If the Socialists stick to the agenda that Benoit Hamon presented for the Presidential election, there is a possibility of forming a largely coherent DemocSoc group.
While the Socialists hold more seats, the leading voice of that group would be Jean-Luc Melenchon - who performed well at the Presidential election from the Left as the outsider candidate.
His movement 'France Insoumise' gained seats, and with what remains of the PS, along with the support of the PCF (Communists), there is a core of fifty seats with which to build an opposition group. That is enough, perhaps, to put pressure on Macron - and maybe enough to act as the beginning of a new Left alignment.
Macron's new movement - his new party of government, created just for that purpose out of the ashes of social democracy and social liberalism - has work to do.
That work has been described as Nordic in style, mixing controls on spending and cuts to regulation, with public investment and a strong social safety net - shifting the public role from keeping people in work to supporting them when they're not.
But to do that, he must first pull down the intensive labour institutions and the DemocSoc Left will not take that lightly. Expect protests on the streets and, if they can organise, a Left bloc voting against him. They will also resist plans aiming to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
Caught in the midst of these struggles will be the social democrats and social liberals - both those within Macron's caucus and those in small numbers outside. They will have a difficult choice over their relationship to the Presidential majority.
Macron will likely have some of his greatest difficulties dealing with the threat of social democrats and social liberals pulling to the Left, if he tacks too far to the Republican Right, and threatening to vote with an organised DemocSoc bloc - perhaps giving both groups more influence than their initial numbers might suggest.
However, right now, Macron has the numbers. If he and his Premier move with energy, the most controversial elements of his approach might be completed early enough that En Marche can ride the wave. But the longer he waits, the harder change will get.
One last note. As a reminder that the far-right is far from beaten, Marine Le Pen was among a handful of Front National deputies elected to the National Assembly.
As Macron and his Centre-Right Premier Edouard Philippe lead the Assembly, they should keep Le Pen's deputies in sight. They represent the cost, for France, of failure to deliver on public perception. En Marche must deliver to France a tangible fresh start.
References
Anne-Sylvanine Chassany's 'Emmanuel Macron proposes Nordic economic model for France: Centrist presidential hopeful opts for blend of fiscal restraint and public spending'; in the Financial Times; 23 February 2017.
Bo Rothstein's 'Macron And The Nordic Model'; from Social Europe; 22 May 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment