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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. His party was defeated by the far-right National Rally.
French President Emanuel Macron announced Sunday he was dissolving the National Assembly and calling a snap election after his centrist alliance was trounced by the far-right National Rally in the European Parliament elections.
According to the first exit polls, the National Rally won around 32%, more than double Macron’s pro-EU coalition, which received 15% of the vote.
The first round of France’s parliamentary election will be held on June 30 and a second round is scheduled for July 7.
Exit polls on Sunday have shown the far-right making substantial gains in other member states in the European Parliament election, including in Germany and Austria.
It’s so weird how the prime minister can just do that. Why?
Not PM, president. It’s part of the constitution to be able to dissolve the National Assembly.
That’s fucking stupid.
No, it really isn’t… being able to essentially declare no confidence in your legislature and immediately begin the election process is, in general, a great thing.
But… Why? Why is it “the president’s” legislature?
France is just an odder case than most parliamentary systems. In short, this places the heads of government closer to the will of the people and requires more coalition building when there isn’t a clear consensus for policy from the electorate.
Most parliamentary systems also allow snap elections - there is usually a maximum length allowed before the next election but the PM can always call one earlier.
This has happened pretty frequently up here in Canada and Trudeau will time elections after good news if the LPC polling particularly strongly.
I think this is an overall good thing, it means that as long as a party is delivering success about once every four years it can remain in power - while allowing it to do the unpopular but necessary things in the interim. A hated party can’t survive in power, but a party that invests in the long term can thrive… it does have a dark side though. The party in power may engage in frivolous bullshit before the election (like unproductive handouts) to try and sway public opinion. It’s up to the public to see through short term bullshit and judge a party more long-term.
It doesn’t belong to the president, no. Think of it as Macron basically asking the French people if this (the anti-EU coalition that did so well in the election) is what they want as a whole. Because if so, their parliament is not properly representing their views.
It seems weird as an american for anyone in the executive branch to have the power to dissolve the legislative, even if (and I assume there are) requirements for an election in X amount of time, can’t do it too often, etc.
Here in the US Congress isn’t just lawmakers, they do investigations, have committees, etc. and act as a check on executive power. It would be weird if the US president would be able to just dissolve Congress
Interesting viewpoint. As a fellow American, I think that that kind of power would actually give POTUS the amount of power that the public seems to think they have. It’s really the only way the federal government has to hold a Swiss-style referendum on a topic.
I think the check there is “Why have you done this twice in 6 months? Parliament/Congress/Legislature, please impeach this clown.”
Most legislatures around the world do the same things? I’m not sure why you think the French government is so different, especially given how much French culture/politics/philosophy influenced the Founding Farmers.
“Hey let’s impeach this idiot”
“Hey sorry we gotta focus on reelection because aformentoned idiot said so”
Well, it’s a risky move. Especially since just tonight, Far Right won by a landslide in the EU Parliement elections, so it’s likely the results will play against him.
Many of us (in the french subs) think it might be an attempt on his part to get far right into power through the parliment to show electors that all they spout is bull, and make them to suffer hard losses in the 2027 presidential elections.
Edit: some news drop and he apparently believes he can make big wins in this one. We’ll see if this bet will pay off, but personally, I sincerly doubt it will ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That worked so well for the Germans in 1933, just do it again!
If that’s true that is scary. However to call an election before the ballots are even cold does that feel like he’s admitting defeat?
Honestly (that’s just my personal opinion but) with the way he’s been acting in the past few weeks after polls gave Far Right far ahead of his party, Macron’s been looking more and more and more desperate. He tried debates between his PM and the Far Right candidate, made a big speech 2 days before the election to plea against far right (a speech in which were pointed out his many contradictions), his PM intervined out of the blue in a debate between each party’s lead EU MEP (most awkward moment in a political debate I’ve ever seen, denounced by every journalist union).
His popularity has been dwindling (with reason) since 2017 and only won the 2022 elections by virtue of not being far right (and the people refused to give him majority in the parliement in exchange). In the past two years, he’s been enacting austerity measure after austerity measure several of which with zero approval, bypassed parliement to get them into law, and barely avoided having his governement destituted (by parliement) by the skin of his teeth. And you know what’s worst? His austerity measures didn’t even ‘save public finances’ because following each of them, he gave additional tax breaks to companies, which means our budget deficit is in a worse shape than it was in 2017.
Long story short, he’s been playing stupid games for the last few years, and the stupid price is that Far Right is now the first party in France and nobody has a clue on how to get them down bar them completely failing at ruling.
(Of course it isn’t just his fault that Far Right is on the rise, but he IS a pretty big cause)
Is this another case of doing like the neoliberals do over in the States, trying everything but measures that would actually help the populace instead of funneling their money into wealthy people’s pockets?
Ehh… a proper political analyst would probably add some nuance to that, but that’s a kind of how it feels (the austerity measures were like pills forced down our throats that only made us sicker). Keep in mind there are other factors in play like:
… and probably some more I forgot to add.
You don’t seem to understand what “dissolving the government” means here and in most parliamentary systems.
So they don’t throw the ministers into big vats if acid?
To be fair, it’s a needlessly permanent and scary sounding term for a regular part of the functioning of a parliamentary democracy.
It is. Dissolve is needlessly permanent - whatever happened to “disband”?
I love the nuance in this comics and how it seeks to understand why it is the way it is before passing judgement.
Or, ya know, kneejerk it.
France has a powerful executive. More powerful than even the US president, inside their own system.
I have heard the French presidency described as an “elected dictator.”
Macron wants people to see what the far right has to offer and hopefully realize they don’t like it before the presidency goes up for grabs.