France's Surprising Election Results: What Comes Next?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

• France's Surprising Election Results: What Comes Next?

  THIS IS AN UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT

  Hello, I'm John Milewski. Welcome to the Wilson Center NOW, a production of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. My guest today is William Drozdiak. William is a global fellow with the Wilson Center’s Global Europe program, and he's author of the book The Last President of Europe Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World. Previously, Bill served as foreign editor of The Washington Post and also as the Post's chief European correspondent.

  
  He later became the founding executive director of the German Marshall Funds trans-Atlantic Center and served for ten years as president of the American Council on Germany. He joins us to discuss the recent French elections. Bill, welcome to Wilson Center now and thank you for joining us. My pleasure, John. So when President Macron called for the snap election, people were surprised.

  
  He said it was to clarify the political situation in France and now the waters seem muddier than ever. How would you rate Macron's gamble? Has it paid off? I think he's been modestly successful with his gamble. After the first round in which the national rally, the far right party of Marine Le Pen, scored a record breakthrough. It looked like they were destined to run the next government.

  
  And that had been setting off alarm bells, not just in France, but across Europe, but in the French system with this two two round system with the runoff. The centrist party around Macron and the the leftist parties, the center left and the far left banded together and withdrew the third candidate so that they could have a stronger chance of blocking the national rally.

  
  And this is exactly what happened. Le Pen's party finished a disappointing third place for her. They thought they were going to soon take over the government. And now you have a very muddled situation. Some call it a hung parliament, but I think that they will eventually sort this out. I think what Macron will try to do with his centrist allies is try to peel away some of the moderate left forces from the Socialist Party.

  
  He will probably do that by announcing a socialist prime minister to run the next government, and we'll see if they muster enough votes across the political spectrum to to win a vote of confidence. To the casual observer, someone who's not an expert on French politics. They see the headlines from around the world and it was all about a surprise result for someone like you who follows it closely.

  
  Put this surprise in context. How surprised were you when you saw that the Macron strategy essentially worked in round two? Well, I know that this has been the overriding obsession of his presidency. When I was doing interviews, I had about six or 7 hours of interviews with him about during the course of my reporting for the book, which this was for the book came out four years ago.

  
  And he told me then that that accounts for the title the Last President of Europe. He says, If I fail and Marine Le Pen becomes my successor, it will mean the death of the European Union. And so he has been doing everything he can, particularly with this, a decision he made to try and forge her from becoming president of the republic.

  
  So I think he's succeeded in blocking the national rally for the time being. But he fears that they could still regain momentum if the economy does not improve. And there and the immigration situation becomes worse. So about Le Pen, you know, she is putting her best spin on this and she makes a good point. When she said two years ago her party had just seven members of parliament and now in raw numbers, they went from 88 to under 40.

  
  They have the most and not bigger than the coalition that the left has put together. But for one party they do have the most one. One analyst said the far right was kept at bay, but is more potent than ever. Do you see it that way? Well, I think they've reached the peak of their influence. It's hard to see where across the political spectrum she is going to draw more votes in the future.

  And it's in the last presidential race against Macron. She got about one third of the vote and he won with 67%. But there is there are a few people and are further to the right of Marine Le Pen's party that may vote for her. But I don't see her drawing much support from the centrists and and other forces like the labor great public now, because traditionally they, the French mainstream parties have not been able to block them by putting together what they call a pact Republica a Republican front that would prevent the national front from taking power.

  
  And the reason this is so much more emotional in France than perhaps elsewhere is that the in France was occupied by the Nazis during World War two and ever since then and the anti-Semitism and the anti-immigrant language that we have heard over the years from Marine Le Pen's father, who was the founder of her party and other supporters, has been something that has disgusted and dismayed much of the French electorate.

  
  And I think that's what we saw happen in the second round of record turnout, 67% voters actually came all across who came out to prevent the national rally from taking power. And I think when I ask you the question and quoted Le Pen, I used her quote from the morning after of 140 seats, and the official tally puts them at 143 seats, just to be clear.

  
  So, you know, people out there fact checking in real time. So where where does the government go from here? I mean, Macron is now in Washington for the NATO summit, so he left his current prime minister in place, at least temporarily, to keep the keep the trains running. But already people are stepping forward. Olivier Ferré, is that my.

  
  My French is not what yours is. So I'm not sure if I pronounce that or. Okay. So, you know, how does he decide who becomes the next prime minister and how critical is that to getting the coalition off to a good start? Well, I think he's going to take some time in assessing the aftermath of the elections. And also he wants to ensure that the Olympic Games, which are taking place the last two weeks of July in Paris, can can be played out in instability.

  
  And they want to make this a great success. France has invested a lot of money and effort in making the games really special, and I think that that's why he wants to leave the present government in as a caretaker force. But he will be, I think, get August when much of France goes off on vacation. He'll be pondering his next moves and we will probably see a new government put together at some point in September or maybe at the latest in October.

  
  Now, I think if they don't get a vote of confidence passed with by taking a moderate prime minister candidate from left, we could see a technocratic government of elder statesman above the political fray, so to speak, who will run France over the course of the next year? And then Le Pen. And then Macron has the opportunity to call new elections a year from now, let's say next June, when he hopes that the that the dust will have settled and that, you know, his own centrist coalition will be in a stronger position.

  So what you're describing as a technocratic government would essentially be a placeholder until the next election. Right. We've seen this elsewhere in the past few years, let's say in Italy. Then Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, was installed as prime minister and did a very good job to stabilize the economy and and and reassure the voters.

  
  And then they have new elections. And Georgia Meloni, who is from a far right party but who has moderated her image, took over. I think this is what Macron would like to see, that the voters will temper their their disdain for his government and by reassessing what it would mean to for a far right party to run France, because it's a France has the second largest economy, the continent's strongest military power.

  
  And it's a it would be a historic step in the wrong direction, I think, for for France to to vote into power a far right party. The differences, the policy differences between left and right are stark and would have significant implications for things like migration or support for Ukraine. But within the left coalition, what are the issues that are going to determine how cohesive that can be and how strong that can be and whether it can govern beyond the gridlock that might just set up the next election?

  
  Well, one thing that does unite this five party coalition on the left, which is very disjointed and has the risk of falling apart very quickly. Right now, they can't even decide who will represent them as their prime minister and candidate. But I think that macro is very hesitant to to see any dramatic changes carried out by the his opponent and so on in the new popular front and on the left wing, because they've already said that they want to reverse the changes in the pension programs and labor reforms that he's carried out.

  
  And for him, these have been significant achievements of his presidency in France right now. Has the lowest unemployment rate in more than 20 years. It's become a much more hospitable place for business and foreign investors. He's unleashed the innovative powers of of younger people in France and it cut back on state regulations. So he would hate to see the the leftist coalition come in and restore this.

  
  And the other big sticking point, which there were a lot of angry demonstrations, was his effort to raise the the age of retirement modestly just to 64, whereas elsewhere in Europe, it's 67, 68, even higher. So France has that lowest. Even with the demographics of people living much longer and and they it's very costly for their pension system.

  
  What is that number currently in France? What is the pension age? It's now 64, but the socialists said they want to lower it back down to 60. Got it. Okay. And how long has it been 64 from 60? It's it is that he raised he pushed that through in the teeth of great protests across the country from 60 it was at 62 and he bumped it up to 64.

  So how how popular or unpopular is Macron himself at this moment? He's no doubt suffered a great fall in his popularity levels. I think this is do I attributed it to his naivete. He had never before been elected to public office. When he ran for the presidency and then surprised everybody by winning. And he does have a an arrogant streak that has rubbed a lot of French voters the wrong way.

  
  But in my personal conversations with him, I found him to be one of the most imaginative and and serious thinkers of all the leaders that I've met. And he certainly has strong views. He's the most pro-European president that France's ever chosen, and he has wanted to use his presidency to push for a greater leap forward by the European Union to become a great power in its own right on the world stage, because he fears that in this era of resurgent big power rivalry pitting the United States against Russia and China, Europe will be ripped apart by these bigger powers and that it has to be able to stand up on the global stage and defend

  
  its own interests. About that, Bill, you know, in this country, a president, even without the support of Congress, has a lot of latitude in the conduct of foreign policy. What is the situation as it relates to that in French politics? Can Macron continue whether it's support for Ukraine or what other other international initiatives that have been part of his agenda?

  
  Well, very much so. The French presidency has great powers in terms of conducting foreign and security matters. And this, of course, was hand-carved by Charles de Gaulle when he set up the Fifth Republic. And the macro sees that as the principal mission for the last three years, he now has in his second term as president. So he wants to be able to persuade the European, its European partners, that they need to take greater responsibility for their own security because, he says we don't know which direction the United States is going to go regardless of who wins the election this November.

  
  He already sees that whether it's a Democratic or Republican president, the United States is more concerned about the security situation in Asia, and particularly the the competition with China and what would be its prepared to reduce its commitment to Europe once we can get some kind of a resolution of the U. The war in Ukraine. The the official White House statement after the election is one way to interpret it is a certain amount of relief was expressed based on the outcome.

  
  Is that a similar for among EU nations? Was that a similar reaction? Yes, I think so. Germany and France is a partner to the to the east and a key power in its own right in the European Union is facing challenges from its own far right party. The alternative of for Deutschland. And so they hoped that they wanted to see this as a way of stemming the populist tide of national ism on the far right that has been rising.

  
  We see a populist right wing government in power in in Hungary. Until recently, one was in power in Poland and the it has a strong presence in Italy. And now even in Spain, far right parties are becoming more and more prominent. So this is, in Macron's view, a potentially lethal challenge to the European Union and his efforts to try to invest more sovereignty in in a more integrated European community.

  
  My final question for you today is about timing or maybe better time. And I'm wondering about how much time Macron and the coalition have. You mentioned early in our discussion that Le Pen's party may have peaked at this 143 seats. And there's not much else place to go to gain more traction. But but what about timing in terms of is there a free pass until we get through the Olympics?

  
  And then will things really start to matter, or is it months? Is it years? How much time do they have to really start to build a stronger coalition, make sure that Le Pen's party has peaked at 143? I think you get the gist of where I'm headed with this. Sure. No, I think well, the timing of that say it mystified people.

  Why did he have to call it now? He wasn't required to call the elections now, but in the wake of the strong showing by the national rally, macro fear that if he waited until after the Olympics and then the traditional August vacation period in France doesn't come back to work and parliament is not in session until the middle to late September, that the momentum would continue to grow for the far right.

  
  So he wanted to precipitate a crisis that would that would stop their their momentum. Now, even at the risk of seeing gains and big losses for his own centrist allies. So I think that's the timing that we're looking at. I think France will well, will try to carry out the Olympics in a peaceful, stable manner with the current caretaker government.

  
  Everybody will go on vacation in August and then we'll come back in September to a very turbulent period for the remainder of the year in France as they try and sort out the political mess. Well, we'll we'll stay tuned and we'll have you back when we get to that period to see what's happening. Thank you very much. Our guest has been William Drozdiak and his great book, The Last President of Europe.

  Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World really is a fascinating look at who has become an even more fascinating figure in world politics after this recent round of elections. Thanks, Bill. My pleasure. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Wilson Center now and that you'll join us again soon. Until then, for all of us at the center.

  
  I'm John Milewski. Thanks for your time and interest.