Dyer: France’s Macron gives Le Pen early shot at power

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Even before the final results were in from all of the 27 European Union countries that voted in the EU elections last weekend, President Emmanuel Macron had called national elections in France for the end of this month. What does he know that other European leaders don’t?

He didn’t have to. His own term as president runs until 2027, and he knows the men and women who just gave his Renaissance Party only 15 per cent of their votes in the EU elections are the same people who will vote for a new National Assembly in France in three weeks’ time. Macron’s party will lose again.

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What the EU elections provide is a useful snapshot of how people would vote in a national election held right now. The message from this month’s EU poll is the far-right nationalist parties are going to eat almost everybody else’s lunch.

It’s France where the risk of a hard right takeover is most acute. Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, has been creeping closer to the presidency in each of the last three elections (2012, 2017, 2022), ending up with 41 per cent of the vote running against Macron last time.

Le Pen has “de-demonized” her party, changing its name from the fascist-sounding National Front, banning public displays of its traditional racism and anti-Semitism, and soft-pedalling her pro-Russian views since the invasion of Ukraine – and opinion polls say she’s now France’s most popular politician.

In the EU elections Sunday, Le Pen’s National Rally got 32 per cent of the French votes, more than twice as many as Macron’s Renaissance. If these results are duplicated in the parliamentary election Macron has now called, Le Pen will be able to make a coalition with smaller far-right parties in the National Assembly and form a government.

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Macron would remain president and control defence and foreign affairs until 2027, but Le Pen’s government would make most decisions on domestic matters. On hearing the results of the EU vote, she immediately said her party was “ready to exercise power, ready to put an end to mass immigration.” So, once again: why did Macron call a vote now?

The success of the far right in the EU election was a disaster foretold, and Macron will have decided on his response weeks ago. He is deliberately giving Le Pen’s National Rally their chance at power three years early (now, not 2027), in hopes they will make a complete mess of it and lose power again in a few years.

Making a virtue of necessity, you might say, but he’s right. Nobody in the National Rally has any experience  running a government, and the coalition of extreme-right parties Le Pen will have to assemble will be full of jostling egos and downright crazies. Give them enough rope, and maybe they’ll hang themselves.

Macron must realize a great crisis over mass migration to Europe is coming soon, driven by out-of-control global warming. Temperatures in Greece, southern Italy and southern Spain are already hitting 40 C – but that’s nothing compared to temperatures hitting 50 C in India, Pakistan, and the greater Middle East.

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There will be literally millions of climate refugees trying to get to Europe, and the borders will slam shut. Like it or not, that’s a given, but it should not be accompanied by a war on those who have already made their legal homes in Europe.

The far right is unlikely to make that distinction, so it would be better if they were in power now and out of power again by the time the real crisis hits. Or maybe I’m crediting Macron with greater foresight than he actually has.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist based in London, England, and author of a new book about climate change, Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers.

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