President of the populist National Rally party Jordan Bardella predicted that fresh elections in France are “inevitable” this year, arguing that only the public can break the political log jam in the country.
Speaking to the press in Paris on Monday, Mr Bardella said per Le Figaro that President Emmanuel Macron will be forced “to call legislative elections as soon as they are institutionally possible,” arguing that only another vote from the public “will make it possible to build a clear and stable majority for the country.”
Under the French constitution, a president is only allowed to call for legislative elections once per year, meaning that the soonest date for new elections will be in a little over six months time.
Last June, President Macron called for snap elections for the National Assembly following his establishment party’s embarrassing defeat to the populist National Rally in the European Parliament Elections.
While Macron had hoped to reaffirm his government’s position, the opposite occurred. With Marine Le Pen’s ascendant National Rally winning the first round of voting, the neo-liberal president made a last-minute pact with the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) coalition to strategically stand down in key constituencies in the second round of voting to prevent the Le Penist party from taking control of the French parliament.
This resulted in the RN — despite winning the most votes — coming in third in the number of National Assembly seats and leaving the parliament in an effective three-way split, with no party having a firm majority to govern.
After months of political wrangling, President Macron installed former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier from the centrist Republicans as prime minister. However, after just three months in office, Barnier became the first PM since the 1960s to be removed by a censure vote in the National Assembly as Le Pen’s National Rally joined onto a motion from the NFP after Barnier attempted to push through a tax-hiking budget.
This forced Macron to appoint his fourth prime minister of the year, the liberal Mayor of Pau François Bayrou, in December. Since his installation in the Hôtel Matingnon last month, Bayrou has sought to offer concessions to both the left and right to prevent a re-run of his predecessor.
However, critical issues such as pension reform and the country’s ballooning debt crisis remain on the table without much prospect of a solution that would be amenable to the differing factions in the National Assembly.
Commenting on the political quagmire, National Rally President Bardella said: “Behind the facade of soft consensus and compromise that satisfies no one, François Bayrou embodies a worrying inertia,” questioning: “Is there a pilot on the plane?”
“If the current composition of the National Assembly, complex and indecisive, represents the French people’s own doubts, it cannot remain as it is without plunging France into a form of immobility,” he warned.
“In this sense, the people would necessarily have to decide and complete what they initiated last summer,” and appoint Marine Le Pen as prime minister, Bardella surmised.
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