President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the French parliament and proscribe a national election as soon as the result of the election to the EU parliament was clear is a high stakes gamble.
One thing to remember is that the French national elections and the elections for the EU parliament in France follows two different electorial systems. The EU parliament election is a proportional vote while the French elections is a variant of majority vote. This do mean that the Rassemblement National’s result in the first is not necessarily directly corresponding to a potential result in a national election. And this is probably one of the calculations made by Macron. The two-round voting system means that in the second round there will be only a couple names to choose by in each single seat electorial district.
Traditionally, the Rassemblement national/Front National’s results in French elections to the National Assembly as well as presidential elections have been tempered by the electorate’s willingness to come together and vote for “anyone but FN”. This is pretty much how every French president from Jacques Chirac forward have got their job.
The big question looming over the coming election is if this “anyone but…” voting pattern will still hold. The RN’s success in the European election is a sign that many French voters are prepared to vote for them, maybe also in a national election, and already in the last election where RN got 88 seats in the National Assembly this cordon sanitaire showed signs of breaking.
The second part of Macron’s calculation may be that elections to the European parliament and elections to the French National Assembly are in people’s mind two different things. Traditionally in most countries there is a clear increased willingness among many voters to be somewhat more “daring” in their choice of candidates for the in their minds more abstract and less important European Parliament than for their respective national parliaments. So when forced to show their cards in “a real election” some may be slightly less inclined to pick the more unsafe card.
At least that must be what president Macron hopes for in his high stakes gamble.