Twilight of the Fifth Republic?

The French Fifth Republic has proved to be much more robust than its rather shaky origins in 1958 suggested. It has evolved, adapted and endured. But it could face its most severe test yet as a result of President Emmanuel Macron’s extraordinary decision to call a snap national election, to be held over two rounds on this Sunday, 30 June, and a week later on 7 July.

The map of European countries that have always been democracies since the end of the Second World War mostly just covers a few constitutional monarchies in north-west Europe and Scandinavia. West Germany, for example, did not become a fully sovereign state until 1955 and the French Fourth Republic collapsed in 1958.

Its Parliament dissolved itself, leaving General De Gaulle to write a new constitution, because the French Army had made it clear that otherwise there would be a military coup. In effect it was a military coup, albeit a swift and bloodless one.  De Gaulle disappointed some of his fellow Generals by devising a new Fifth Republic that would free its colonies and become an enduring democracy.

If it survives for another four years, it will become the longest-lasting French Republic. But will it? It’s been through a lot, with its President for 14 years, the Socialist François Mitterrand, first appointing Communists to his government and later ‘cohabiting’ with a Gaullist Prime Minister.

In this century, the republic has relied on ‘Republican Solidarity’ to endure. That’s a grand term for a political deal, the understanding that the parties now known as the Republicans (heirs to the Gaullists) and the Socialists, plus President Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance, will back one another rather than give the far-right or far-left a taste of power.

Most obviously, Marine Le Pen, like her father before her, was defeated when she reached the second round of Presidential elections and faced a single opponent, as only the top two candidates aren’t eliminated after the first round. In a National Assembly election, any candidate who secured at least 12.5% of the vote in the first round can stay in the fight -or can withdraw in favour of a better placed candidate in line with the principle of Republican Solidarity.

The effectiveness of that principle is about to be tested as never before. If the polls are even roughly accurate, Le Pen’s National Rally will win the first round of the snap National Assembly election. Its triumph in France in the European election led to Emmanuel Macron’s gamble that enough French voters will come to their senses, as he sees it, leaving room for Republican Solidarity to kick in for the second round.

Marine Le Pen’s protégé, Jordan Bardella, has stated that he will only become Prime Minister if the National Rally wins an absolute parliamentary majority -at least 289 seats- over the two rounds of the election. Of course, in saying that, he wants to maximise his party’s support in order to win as many seats outright as possible in the first round, as a candidate who gets more than half the vote is elected without a second-round vote week later.

But in a second round the National Rally’s candidates will likely most often be up against the New Popular Front. It’s in second place in the polls and embraces most of political spectrum from centre-left to far(ish)-left, with Greens and regionalist parties included. Big losers will be Macron’s centrist Ensemble, likely to finish third. Even if the President successfully orders his candidates to withdraw in favour of the left, there’s no guarantee that their voters will follow orders.

The Republicans appear to be heading for a rather distant fourth place. Both its politicians and its voters are divided over whether their next step should be to throw their lot in with Le Pen or to stay true to Republican Solidarity. Perhaps Macron half-expects to be forced into ‘cohabitation’ with a National Rally prime minister and hopes the experience of having the party in government will dissuade votes from choosing Marine Le Pen as his successor in the 2027 presidential election.

That is the size of his gamble. He hasn’t just bet the farm -his presidency and his legacy- on the outcome of a National Assembly election that he did not have to call, he’s bet the French Fifth Republic itself.

Share this article: