Last Updated on Thursday, 4 July, 2024 at 8:47 am by Andre Camilleri
After the European Parliament election results, President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election. The reason why Macron called a snap election, at least from what is being reported in the mainstream media, relates to the catastrophic score garnered by his party in the European Parliament elections.
Macron knows that in the coming weeks he must decide on the future of Europe, as well as on the EU’s top posts. He is one of the most important, if not the most important, leader in the EU. Among the decisions that must be taken is the future of Ukraine. If on Sunday, in the second round of elections, the National Rally (RN) manages to obtain another victory, with a majority that positions them to a different political trajectory, then it is checkmate. Actually, we are all finished. This is in fact quite worrying. Macron just gambled with the future of Europeans, as well as the French. France is a leading member state. Nothing occurs if they are not consulted, and everything moves with a compromise. The French have their tentacles in each and every corridor of the European institutions. Actually, it is chilling to leave this in the hands of the National Rally, unless Macron did it on purpose to absolve himself from any future responsibilities.
Macron is gambling with the future of France, as much as David Cameron gambled with the future of the UK with Brexit, unless he is aspiring to become ahem French Foreign Minister. However, I hasten to add that Macron is going a step further. France is a nuclear country, as well as a founder of the Council of Europe, which led to the European Economic Community in 1957. Robert Schuman and other pioneers were the founders of peace, who brought stability in Europe; founded on the values of human rights and democracy, including the rule of law. The narrative of the RN is going against these foundations. As much as I criticised the EU sanctions on the Russian economy, certainly, I do not want the far-right to dictate what happens in the EU. I do not want to live in a continent where people become scapegoats of bad decisions.
First, they will come after the immigrants, then they will scapegoat those who look different, then other minorities including gay people and so on and so forth. This is truly a gamble with people’s lives. In June 2022, I foresaw the rise of the far-right coming. I even appealed to pay attention with the way the EU handles the EU sanctions. Sincerely, I did so, not because I was approving of the invasion of Ukraine, but because economically it was completely mishandled within the Berlaymont building. This must be attributed to the incumbent President of the European Commission. Back then, I explained that if people get financially poorer, fringe parties, especially the far-right tend to take advantage with a populist narrative, and they vote for them. Well, two years down the line and we are experiencing it.
I sincerely hope that this gamble is not suiting Macron because he cannot take any decisions vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin, and he cannot convince his peers to broker a peace agreement. The French President is a banker. He is able to read financial numbers, as much as his closest allies can read the polls. Macron knows that his country will be put in an excessive deficit procedure and also knows that the way things are unfolding we might have additional conflicts. I am seeing an escalation not a de-escalation. Macron is not a leader. He is not able to take decisions on behalf of the EU, and he cannot convince his peers at the negotiating table, as much as Angela Merkel did when she was Chancellor of Germany. Let’s leave the ineptitude Olaf Scholz alone for now. Macron knows that if the National Rally wins a majority on Sunday, all the decisions within the EU will be hindered. Everything will be stalled, including the aid to Ukraine, as well as the rest of the decisions that could also be altering the French foreign policy.
When you think about it, there is a risk of creating political instability in the EU. This would see a complete shift in the way politics are executed within the EU. It suits Donald Trump on the other side of the Atlantic, as well as Putin and Alexander Lukashenko on the Eastern side. I am not sure if we have seen anything like this in the past 70 years. Frankly, I am quite worried. Having such a gamble with people’s lives is truly narcissistic. We all know that Macron is a narcissist. However, I never thought he would come to a point of absolving himself from taking future decisions, by offering a blank cheque to the far-right. The probability is that the RN will be consuming additional powers on Sunday. I truly hope that this was not done on purpose, so that in turn, Macron is not criticised for not taking important future decisions. Obviously, he cannot just pin it on the far-right’s powers in the National Assembly if they make it on Sunday. This is why I am interpreting this move as narcissistic and not a gamble. Those saying that Macron’s move was only to make the RN look bad up to 2027 are not correct. It is actually lunacy.
Lastly, by the time I am writing this article, it is emerging that France’s left-wing and centrist parties have pulled hundreds of candidates out of Sunday’s parliamentary elections. Apparently, it is a tactical move aimed at preventing the realisation of France’s first far-right government since the second world war. The fine balance of the foundations of the EU, that of bringing different cultures together, without any militarisation, seems to be coming to an end. Let’s all hope for the best!
