PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron could wake up (if he slept at all) with his wings clipped on Monday morning.
The second high-stakes round of legislative election on sunday It will almost certainly affect the influence of the French leader in the areas of defense and foreign affairs. He could diminish his role as an energetic and influential figure in European and world affairs and as one of Ukraine’s main supporters in the war against russiasay retired French military officers and analysts of French foreign and defense policy.
After the centrist president’s bloc finished a distant third behind the rising far-right in last weekend’s election, first round of voting For a new parliament, one of the only certainties before Sunday’s decisive second round is that Macron himself will not be able to emerge stronger.
With many of its candidates already out of the race, Macron’s camp cannot secure the absolute majority that gave him ample room to maneuver in his first term as president starting in 2017. He is also likely to fall well short of the 245 seats it later obtained. his re-election in 2022. That made him the largest group, although without a clear majority, in the outgoing National Assembly that Macron dissolved on June 9, triggering the surprise election after the far-right gave his alliance a painful beating in the French vote for the European Parliament.
That leaves two results that will likely emerge between Sunday night and Monday, when official results arrive.
In one scenario, France could end up with a fragmented parliament and a prime minister too weak to seriously undermine Macron’s constitutionally guaranteed role as head of the armed forces and, more broadly, unable or unwilling to greatly challenge his powers. defense and foreign policy. Still, even in the best-case scenario for Macron, France risks becoming inward-looking and more focused on its polarized and unstable domestic politics than on its place and its military activities in the world.
In a second scenario, the worst for Macron, the far right could secure a historic victory on Sunday that would place the president with Jordan Bardella as prime minister, in an uneasy and possibly conflictive power-sharing agreement. Bardella, 28, is a protégé of Marina Le Pen, which leads the far-right National Agrupation party, with Bardella as president. Both Le Pen and Bardella have made it clear that, in power, they would try to control Macron and make efforts in decision-making on defense, Europe and foreign affairs.
The French Constitution only gives limited answers on how different scenarios could play out. To a large extent, it could depend on the personalities of those involved and their ability to reach agreements, French analysts say.
Although the constitution says that the president is the commander in chief, it also says that the prime minister “is responsible for national defense.”
During the campaign, Bardella laid out what he said would be “my red lines” regarding Ukraine, if he ends up sharing power with Macron: no more French deliveries of long-range weapons that Ukraine could use to attack targets in Russia and no shipment of troops, a scenario that Macron proposed this year. Bardella said she does not want France, which possesses nuclear weapons, to be drawn into a direct confrontation with Russia, which also possesses nuclear weapons. Her party has historically it has been close to Russia and Le Pen cultivated ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin for many years and supported Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Who would have the final say in possible long-range weapons discussions for kyiv is “actually quite a complicated question,” says François Heisbourg, a French defense and security analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“The president could probably do it if he wanted to, but the prime minister could also claim that he can stop the president from doing it,” he says. “He may become a dead end.”
“If they don’t agree, they can stop each other from doing anything.”
Power sharing is not new in France. But in previous cases, the president and prime minister did not have as strong a political opposition as Macron and Bardella.
“So far no one has attempted to test these respective powers to their final conclusion. “This is completely unexplored territory,” says Heisbourg.
On military matters, Le Pen has already fired a warning shot, calling Macron’s role as commander-in-chief “an honorary title for the president, since it is the prime minister who pulls the purse strings.” Macron replied: “What arrogance!”
Retired French vice admiral Michel Olhagaray, former director of France’s center for higher military studies, is concerned that what he describes as the constitutional “blurring” over shared military responsibilities could affect the ranks of the country’s armed forces.
The conflictive distribution of power could be “something extremely painful for armies, knowing who they will obey. Very painful, very difficult,” he states.
“In any case, the President of the Republic can no longer take personal initiatives, such as launching a (military) operation, etc., because that requires an understanding with the Prime Minister.”
Because the French military operates around the world, with forces deployed on the eastern flank of the NATO alliance, in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, changes in its posture by a power-sharing government are sure to be scrutinized by France’s international network of allies and partners.
“Everyone will ask: ‘But what is happening? How will this evolve? What will become of France? Will France keep its commitments?’” Olhagaray says.
But analysts say France’s nuclear forces should not be affected. The president holds the nuclear codes, among other things to ensure that the arsenal remains credible as a deterrent by ensuring that potential enemies understand that any decision to attack is not made by committee.
If a clear majority does not emerge for any bloc in Sunday’s vote, lawmakers may have to do something that is not a tradition in France: build a coalition government. Since the prime minister at the helm will need broad consensus in parliament to prevent the government from falling, that person is more likely to be a junior partner weakened by sharing power with Macron.
“The president will have much more control,” says retired general Dominique Trinquand, former head of France’s military mission to the United Nations.
In a coalition government, building consensus on difficult foreign policy issues (such as whether to sharply increase aid to Ukraine) could take time, and divisive issues could take a backseat.
“The room for maneuver would be reduced,” says Frédéric Charillon, a political science professor at Paris Cité University.
“In France, we are much more accustomed to this kind of presidential system of monarchical foreign policy, where the president says, ‘I will do this, I will do that.’”
But in the power-sharing agreement with a new prime minister now awaiting Macron, “it cannot work like that.”
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