“I will not dissolve the National Assembly at this time.” This sentence is the one written by Charles de Gaulle, on a first draft of his speech of May 30, 1968. Sentence crossed out and replaced by “I dissolve the National Assembly today”. We know the rest: the elections of June 23 and 30 will not only put an end to the political crisis of May 1968 but lead to a Gaullist tidal wave, with 293 deputy seats out of the 487 in the assembly.
Did Emmanuel Macron experience, this Sunday, June 9, this same moment of hesitation, before making a clean slate of the national political landscape at 9:02 p.m., in front of the French? Does he also believe in this magic of the ballot box, capable of transforming the political chaos at work in our country since 2022 into a real majority? Or is he ready to go all out, even if it means opening the doors of Matignon wide to Jordan Bardella?
Giving people a voice back is never a bad idea. In a country that is struggling with its democracy, we can hardly blame its leader for confronting voters with their responsibilities. To let them choose, in the name of Article 12 of the Constitution, their destiny, whether it exudes the stale taste of the extreme right, oozes the excess of the extreme left or distills the outmoded scent of parties incapable of to renew. But will the French be able to reinvent politics in just twenty days, as Emmanuel Macron is proposing?
“In politics, what is often most difficult to appreciate and understand is what is happening before our eyes,” said Alexis de Tocqueville. And unfortunately the spectacle is more about the political nonsense of the Fourth Republic than the emergence of a spirit of citizen resistance. “We are going to do battle,” assure ministers and deputies of the majority, their voices trembling, in view of the impressive local scores achieved by the National Rally candidates.
A setback for France
But is it not precisely this battle that the young President of the Republic had already committed to leading, on May 7, 2017, when, in front of the Louvre pyramid, he promised “the unity of our people and our country”, going so far as to assure Marine Le Pen’s voters to “do everything during the next five years so that they no longer have any reason to vote for the extremes”?
Emmanuel Macron lost this fight. “The result of the elections is not a good result for the parties which defend Europe, including that of the presidential majority,” he admitted. Not only is this not a good result, but these almost 40% of voters opting for the extreme right represent a setback for France, a slap in the face for the head of state. Neither Jacques Chirac, nor Nicolas Sarkozy, nor François Hollande had made the RN grow so much. But probably none of them had played with fire so much. If he wants at all costs to prevent July 7 from looking like a dark Sunday, Emmanuel Macron must understand that France’s dice are not all in his hands.
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