French President Emmanuel Macron has dissolved the lower house of parliament and announced fresh elections after his party's poor performance in the EU elections.
Le Pen’s party polls strong but has few allies. My guess is that Macron hopes that even with his party weakened, he can form a broad coalition that would keep Le Pen out. I have no idea how likely that is to work.
LR already said they won’t make a coalition with LREM. They’d be at least as likely to ally with the RN. As for LFI/PC… LREM dislike them at least as much as they do the RN.
Only strategic move I see is let the RN govern until 2027 in the hope they flaceplant hard enough with no plan or coalition to hand an easy win back in the next presidential/legislative elections, which makes twisted sense given that everyone knew they were going to win in '27. Except the risk of that plan backfiring is stratospherically high, especially if the RN lands a majority (which is not unlikely as people were pissed off voting this morning, and will be even more pissed off after a dissolution).
Yes, I and could also see an alliance between Le Pen and whatever UMP (hard right conservatives that used to rule all the time until Sarkozy drove the party into the wall, for non French people) calls itself these days. So, if indeed the snap election is a gamble to keep himself in power, it’s a risky gamble.
If it’s a gamble to let them rule and fail, as you hypothesize, that’s even riskier. Fash have a way of staying in power somewhat longer than their popular support.
Either way it’s not going to be fun days in France for a little while, damn.
let the RN govern until 2027 in the hope they flaceplant hard enough
I can see how this would make sense but isn’t 3 years a bit too short to set up policies and face their consequences? They would have to fail over short-term stuff and unpopular decisions, which (as much as I despise them with every fiber of my body) I don’t think they would be dumb enough to do.
A minority government is almost guaranteed to fail, and that’s theoretically bound to make them unpopular (as it has with every prime minister of Macron’s second mandate).
However, this could backfire if they have a majority. It could also backfire because voters are not necessarily that dumb and might just see through this charade. If anyone can handwave piss-poor performance away, it’s the RN.
Le Pen’s party polls strong but has few allies. My guess is that Macron hopes that even with his party weakened, he can form a broad coalition that would keep Le Pen out. I have no idea how likely that is to work.
LR already said they won’t make a coalition with LREM. They’d be at least as likely to ally with the RN. As for LFI/PC… LREM dislike them at least as much as they do the RN.
Only strategic move I see is let the RN govern until 2027 in the hope they flaceplant hard enough with no plan or coalition to hand an easy win back in the next presidential/legislative elections, which makes twisted sense given that everyone knew they were going to win in '27. Except the risk of that plan backfiring is stratospherically high, especially if the RN lands a majority (which is not unlikely as people were pissed off voting this morning, and will be even more pissed off after a dissolution).
Yes, I and could also see an alliance between Le Pen and whatever UMP (hard right conservatives that used to rule all the time until Sarkozy drove the party into the wall, for non French people) calls itself these days. So, if indeed the snap election is a gamble to keep himself in power, it’s a risky gamble.
If it’s a gamble to let them rule and fail, as you hypothesize, that’s even riskier. Fash have a way of staying in power somewhat longer than their popular support.
Either way it’s not going to be fun days in France for a little while, damn.
I can see how this would make sense but isn’t 3 years a bit too short to set up policies and face their consequences? They would have to fail over short-term stuff and unpopular decisions, which (as much as I despise them with every fiber of my body) I don’t think they would be dumb enough to do.
A minority government is almost guaranteed to fail, and that’s theoretically bound to make them unpopular (as it has with every prime minister of Macron’s second mandate).
However, this could backfire if they have a majority. It could also backfire because voters are not necessarily that dumb and might just see through this charade. If anyone can handwave piss-poor performance away, it’s the RN.
They’ll just blame LFI for everything that goes wrong, it works for Macron, why not them.