French voters have just confounded both polling and the analysts by electing a somewhat more left-wing Assembly in the latest legislative election. As in the 2024 UK general election, voters shifted away from the center and somewhat to the right, but due the geographic distribution of the vote, the left-leaning party (actually a coalition of parties) New Popular Front (NFP) made significant gains. The main loser was the centrist President Emmanuel Macron, the head of Ensemble (ENS) who, in a classic case of being out of touch with the citizens, decided to call a snap election in response to the strong showing by the far-right (and possibly crypto-fascist) National Rally (RN) in European parliamentary elections. The results from that election (in France) were not good, but EU elections are often venue where voters in various countries make a domestic protest vote, because the connection between EU governance and the average voter in EU countries is weak at best. Nonetheless, Macron called an unnecessary election in order to basically berate French voters for making a protest vote in response to his unpopular government. Initially, that looked like a bad idea, as RN led in the polls. However, the outcome was a significantly different, as NFP won the most seats.
As in the UK, vote efficiency mattered significantly for the results. French legislative elections are not strictly first-past-the-post (FPTP), but use a more complicated system (naturallement) where a candidate can win in a first round with over 50% of the vote, but a second round is held if there is no winner. In that case, only candidates receiving 12.5% of the vote in the first round can advance. The second round, however, is FPTP. Voters in both France and the UK understand tactical voting, as do the parties, and in both elections the center and the left agreed to withdraw competing candidates in various seats (though it should be noted that Macron was hesitant about doing so, and his party subordinates revolted). And in both France and the UK, the right-wing vote ended up being distributed inefficiently relative to other groupings in part because of tactical voting.
I've embedded a spreadsheet below that has the gory statistical details, but the summary is this: NFP earned a seat for approximately ever 89,000 votes, whereas RN earned a seat for every 144,000.* Overall, right-wing parties picked up about 45% of the vote, but received just 36% of the seats. The left got 30% and 33% respectively, while the center got 24% and 29%. (<2% went to other assorted parties.) Macron had previously appointed a minority government (France's governmental system is overly complicated, but that's the gist of what happened) based on the 43% of seats held by his party and his allies. After this election, however, he will most likely (again, complicated) appoint someone from the left as Prime Minister.
As in the UK, the French should celebrate the outcome of their election, but nobody on the left or center in either state should be complacent for a moment about turning back the rising right-wing forces in their country. The voters as a whole are moving in the wrong direction. Macron may have slowed RN's momentum, but as of now there's no indication that will last. The French center and French left will have to cooperate and prove the French government can work, or RN will make further gains.
* Note that this is the total of first and second round votes. A more accurate analysis would take just the votes from the winning round, but I suspect the general point - RN had poor efficiency - would remain.
No comments:
Post a Comment