French Jews ‘immensely relieved and immensely worried’

What a wild and unexpected end to the legislative election in France. Despite it's standout showing in the first round, Marine Le Pen’s far right party National Rally was relegated to third place in last weekend’s final election, held after President Macron’s shock dissolution of parliament four weeks earlier.

The left-wing Popular Front, a group of leftwing parties that range from the Trotskyite far Left to the social democrat Socialist party and the Greens, now holds the most seats in the National Assembly, while a group of centrist parties, including President Macron’s Renaissance, holds the second largest, having done far better than anyone was expecting. Sanity seems to have been restored.

And yet, as a thoughtful friend remarked to me on Sunday evening, “I’ve discovered this evening that it’s possible to be simultaneously immensely relieved and immensely worried”. For with three distinct blocs in parliament and no majority, France is faced with an incredible challenge. Politics in France’s Fifth Republic are not based on compromise or cohabitation.

When de Gaulle established the Fifth Republic in 1958, parliament’s role was limited by design; de Gaulle placed the presidency at the heart of the system, with parliament playing a supporting role. The Assemblée Nationale became a site of performative argument, rather than a place for debate and legislation, and the president, who in practice is always aligned with the majority party in parliament, has the leeway to govern by decree.

The trouble, as Macron, who lost his parliamentary majority in 2022, has discovered over the last three years, is that it is almost impossible to govern without a majority, for the opposition parties would not dream of voting with a president who represents another faction, even when their policies align.