Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz arm in arm, during a friendly visit by the French president to Potsdam. The photo dates from June 2023, just one year before catastrophic European elections for the leaders of the Franco-German couple. On its front page of June 11, the Taz takes the photo, but now nicknames them the “European Blues Brothers”…
This June 9, waves of the far right swept through Paris and Berlin. 31.4% for the National Rally. 16% for the AfD, whose leader assured during the campaign that “not all SS were criminals”. Opposite, Scholz’s Social Democrats achieved their worst result in one hundred and fifty years of existence (14%), at the same level as the presidential party in France.
“The king is naked in the center of Europe and he collapses in his Carolingian heart: Macron and Scholz are the two huge losers of these elections”, sums it up Corriere della Serra in Rome.
Faced with the verdict of the polls, the tenant of the Elysée decided to dissolve the National Assembly. A French political earthquake, with European tremors. “Macron is playing roulette with the future of France, and putting that of Europe at stake in the process, estimates the British weekly The New Statesman. His maneuver may be audacious, but it exposes the flaws in his own camp and in Europe at a time when it needs leadership the most. This is the real failure of Macron’s second term.”
In Brussels, Politico compares the French president to “David Cameron launching a referendum on Brexit with the sole aim of silencing the Eurosceptics in his camp”. With the result that we know.
“At least Macron dares to do something”
But the French head of state benefits from the comparison with his German counterpart, who remained impassive in the face of his camp’s catastrophic results. “At least Macron dares to do something,” supports Der Spiegel, implicitly emphasizing the paralysis of the chancellor. The German newspaper describes “a risky maneuver, but one that suits the player Macron: he cannot remain a passive spectator like Scholz, who has made it his political trademark.”
The great Frankfurt daily, there FAZ, also highlights that the Frenchman “at least maintained his rank as master of clocks, forcing the opposition parties to throw all their plans in the trash.” Scholz finds himself under pressure, one year before the next federal elections in Germany.
On the other side of the Rhine, the announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly does not necessarily make one optimistic about the future of French politics. Der Spiegel remembers a similar coup attempted in 2005 by the ruling party, in a context of significant political distrust: “With his back to the wall, Gerhard Schröder had provoked a vote of confidence in the Bundestag to pass his controversial program. Everything went from through for him. The same thing could happen for Macron.” His social democratic party took more than fifteen years to recover from the electoral debacle and return to power.
.