Maria Guevara: France emerges from the elections divided into three [video interview]

Romanian social activist Maria Guevara, who has lived a significant part of her life in France, comments on the results of the early parliamentary elections in this country. The left-wing New Popular Front emerged from the vote as the strongest party, and the left’s shaky cooperation with Emmanuel Macron’s camp did not allow Marine Le Pen’s National Rally to take the majority. What, however, could come next? The left criticized Macron’s policies and demonstrated in the streets together with thousands of French men and women who opposed pension reform or migration reform. Will it now join forces with Macron in the name of ‘Republican Front’, or containing the far right? Maria Guevara also comments on who votes for which of the three almost-equal political forces now competing for power in France.

The entire transcription of the interview is available below the video.

Welcome to another edition of Cross Border Talks. Today I will be leading a solo episode on the French elections that happened just a few days ago and ended in a sensational victory of the new popular front and not the National Assembly as most of the observers and also the service expected. I will be joined in today’s conversation by Maria Guevara, a Romanian activist who has lived a good part of her life in France, who has published a bigger study on the French elections on her personal site, which you will find in the comments, and who will comment together with me the outcome of the elections and also try to say more about the perspectives for France, for French left, the sensational winner of this election, for Emmanuel Macron, for the nationalists and also for Europe, because France is a key European country. Maria, thank you for being with us today.

Thank you, Małgorzata, for having me today.

My first question would be, what was your first impression after the results were announced? A relief? A satisfaction? 

Absolutely, definitely a relief. That was the first thing I felt at 8 p.m. on Sunday, the 7th of July, when they announced the estimates. Obviously, a bit of satisfaction, because the left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front, actually won a lot more seats than they had two years ago, and because they won against all odds.

The media was against them. The rest of the political spectrum was against them. They had all the odds against them. And they still won. And even the way, you know, the electoral system for the parliamentary elections, even this was basically against the left. It was designed by Sarkozy in 2009, the way they basically divided the circumscriptions in which you can vote, and it was basically thought by Sarkozy in a way that would advantage the right-wing party of that time.

Despite all this, the left-wing coalition basically has the first place in the election. But at the same time, I’m still worried because the games are not yet done. The war is not over.

And I’m measuring my words by saying this is a war, because it is a class war, and it is a very tricky time for France at the moment. The fact that we see these three big blocks, you know, the left, the center-right, and the far-right, the fact that we see those three blocks that have more or less an equal weight in terms of the number of people who vote for them, about 10 million to 11 million people for each, it is a very worrying situation right now in France.

In terms of people voting, it is still the National Front of Marine Le Pen which gained the biggest number of votes. Yet it did not convert into the biggest number of seats. How do you comment on that?

Does it mean that the left actually profited a bit from the political system, or is really the left the party that expresses the most the social emotions, the anger of the people against Macron, the disappointment with his rule?

I think we have to look at the first round of the elections. That is where we see exactly how people want to vote and who they vote for. And if I go back to some data that I selected a week ago, we can see that the far-right had 11 million people vote for them in the first tour.

The right-wing or center-right-wing parties had 10 million, almost 500,000 people vote for them. And the left, meaning the New Popular Front and the other small parties, had almost 10.5 million, a little bit over. We can see that it is actually almost the same number of people in the first tour. This clearly shows that the left doesn’t yet embody the resistance, or it doesn’t yet embody the anger that people feel about Macron’s neoliberal policies. This anger is equally going to the left or to the far-right.

However, in the second tour, indeed, the National Front had more votes than the other parties, but it had less seats. And in some ways, I wouldn’t say the left profited from the political system. In the New Popular Front, they actually withheld all of the candidates who were in third position for the second tour. They all left the election. They all canceled their presence in the second tour, so that the vote could go to the other Republican, meaning right or center-right candidate, against the National Front. So clearly, it wasn’t an intention on the Popular Front to profit from the system, the way the parliamentary electoral system works.

I think it was just a matter of luck, and the fact that in urban areas, obviously, the left is going to get more seats and more votes than in the rural areas, where the National Assembly is the most present and gets the most votes. Of course, this means that there is a certain anger in the people who voted for the far right. It really means that a lot of them will feel that they were not represented in the parliament.

So in the long term, or in the medium term, actually, until 2027, this sort of anger might actually start to become more present, more visible, even more violent. So there needs to be a lot of work around reassuring people that even though their favorite candidate didn’t get a seat, that somehow the new government and the new parliament is going to work in favor of the working class and the people of France, not just the very few rich people who actually have to gain from the Macron policies. Does it make sense?

Yeah, it sounds logical. And if we could look at the class composition of the three blocs, I think it will explain a lot as well. You mentioned that you proved that there are three almost equal political coalitions now on the French political scene. Could you analyze who voted for each of these blocks?

Absolutely. There is no sociological data that looks at the type of people who vote for these parties, and especially in terms of an ethnic background. This kind of data collection is prohibited – there is no way you can find out the ethnicity of someone in statistical studies. But we can infer from the type of information that can be found online in academic journals and other serious studies that usually people who voted for the far right tend to live in rural areas more than in urban areas.

Therefore, they actually have less contact with foreigners or with French people of foreign descent. A lot of them tend to be less educated, those that come from the rural areas. But there is an increase in young people going to vote for the far right. This hasn’t been seen in a lot of time. And a lot of those young people tend to be quite well educated. So the profile of people who vote for the far right is changing. There are also very few, but still they exist, voters for the far right who actually have a foreign background, from Algerian or Moroccan or sub-Saharan descendants. It is a very strange thing, but it happens. It’s very marginal.

In terms of who votes for the left, it’s usually more urban citizens, younger, definitely younger people. So somewhere under 45 years old. And in general, they tend to be well educated. But there is still a small part of the working class with less education that still votes not necessarily for La France Insoumise, but mostly for the Socialist and the Communist Party due to historical allegiance to those parties.

And then when it comes to the center right bloc, there you have a mixture, usually more urban, but there are still voters in the rural areas who vote for the right-wing parties. They tend to be a bit more well-off, a bit older. They tend to be already pensioners. Their stakes are not very high when it comes to the reforms that Macron is implementing with regards to the pension schemes. And they tend to be a little bit more educated than the other voters for the far right.

So these are the main things that distinguish them. But again, it could be very heterogeneous. Usually people of African or North African descent, they tend to vote to the left. But in some cases, they could still vote for right-wing parties.

Oh, and one thing, one thing I forgot to mention. I forgot to mention one thing that this year, because Bardella is a young and apparently good-looking candidate, the number of women who voted for the far right increased vertiginously, and they tend to come from all ages. So it was clearly a matter of putting on a nice face and attracting an electorate that otherwise would have been either disinterested or would have voted on the right-wing, for example. So that’s another thing that changed this year.

Interesting. But coming back to the three blocs, the center-right and the left made a kind of limited alliance for the election, the Republican bloc, to stop the far right. Do you expect them to work together also in the future parliament, given that with three blocs of almost equal force, it will be very difficult to rule the country?

So if the left works together with Macron’s party, what does it say about the credibility of the left? And do you think this is the right strategy? Or do you expect that this cooperation will be very short-term and will end soon after the final results were given?

Basically, several scenarios are possible. My feeling is that Macron, I mean, he announced several times that he will not do a coalition with La France Insoumise. That’s out of the question for him.

And so his, today [9 July] the foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, published a tribune in Le Monde where he actually says that Macron’s party and the members of the parliament from Macron’s side should band with what he calls the Republican left, meaning the Socialist Party, the Green Party and the Communist Party. He is suggesting that Macron should form an alliance with these three parties, but not with La France Insoumise. This is a way to basically create another rift in the left-wing coalition, which has been very fragile. The left is well known for not actually banding together and not sticking together. So Macron is now playing this to his advantage. He’s basically saying that he excludes any possibility to work with La France Insoumise and particularly with Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

On the left, there have been some criticisms saying that actually the New Popular Front should not ally with Macron because that means betraying its voters, betraying everyone who believes in left-wing values. There is also a very slight possibility, or at least it was something that was considered before the elections, before the 7th of July. There was a possibility that Macron would actually form a government with the Rassemblement National, with the far right.

So basically everything was possible before the 7th of July. But I think the fact that the left had such a huge advantage and the fact that it became the first party among the three to have a number of seats in the parliament. This is what made Macron reconsider his position and to say, oh, actually, I’m ready to do a coalition with the left-wing parties, but only those that I deem republican. Republican in the French definition is those that uphold the values of the Republic, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and a few others. The problem is there is a huge uncertainty at the moment, and I’m not sure that the four parties within the popular front are going to find a way to select someone among them to be a prime minister. Basically, the popular front is saying we should have the prime minister, we should be the ones sending the prime minister in.

Macron’s side are saying, no way, we’re not putting a prime minister from your side. The most we can do is to band with the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the Green Party. And then, you know, Bardella, Le Pen, and the far right, they’re just absolutely silent. All they’re saying is that they haven’t been completely represented and that they deserve more seats to the table.

There are quite a few issues within the New Popular Front. You know, they have four major, let’s say, heads of the movement.

So we have Mélenchon at La France Insoumise. He is very criticized. He’s very unpopular, even among his people, but also on the outside. The media have portrayed him as this anti-Semitic monster. There were a lot of, you know, unfounded accusations about him.

Then there is the leader of the Green Party, Tendelier. She’s a woman, first of all, and she’s very good at public speaking. She has a very good, you know, a good presence in the media.Then we have the Socialist Party, where, you know, Glucksmann, he’s the European MP, but they’re thinking of maybe sending the head of the party. And then there’s Fabien Roussel with the Communist Party, who is actually completely, you know, he’s much more conservative than the Communist Party used to be. So these four figures, plus there is a few other well-known figures in the media, usually coming from La France Insoumise. I will not name them all, but I can put them in comments for people to look at. Basically, my feeling is that they’re going to fight, all of them, for the position of a prime minister.

Instead of actually banding together and trying to apply pressure and put pressure on Macron to follow, you know, the left-wing policies, then, you know, this could be a problem in the long term. The striking thing is that the mainstream media keeps talking about the divisions in the left-wing coalition. They keep talking about how these guys don’t get along together, how one of them is clinging to power while the others are trying to steal the seat.

We see all sorts of really basic drama just to portray them as this political family that basically always fights, and they’re not reliable. But in truth, when you look at their statements, their official statements, they tend to basically say, we’re going to try and put all our differences behind us, and we’re going to push for reforms. And we can hear La France Insoumise being the most vocal one, talking about imposing certain policies that are in favor of the working class, talking about reversing some of the reforms that Macron has implemented already. So, yeah, it is going to be very tricky.

There is no way to know what’s going to happen in the next few days. And Macron hasn’t said anything, and I think that’s intentional. The more chaos, the better it is for him, basically.

So, just a quick question. Do you believe it is possible, it is real, to have, for example, the pension reform reversed? As Mélenchon put it, it is one of his conditions, and one of the first things he wants to do if he becomes the prime minister. But should we even consider this scenario as realistic?

Yeah, it’s a very tricky issue. It could be possible, basically. If someone from the France Insoumise becomes Prime Minister, then they could basically use the same tools that Macron has used, the Article 49.3, which is a way to pass law, pass legislation and reforms, without having the consent from the parliament. So, that is one way that the reform could be reversed, in the same way that it has been imposed, basically, forcibly, by the prime minister. The other possibility is that there could be some rogue members of parliament from other parties, even including the far-right, that could just not follow the party line. And when it comes to voting on the reversal of the reform, they could just magically side with the left-wing coalition and vote for the reversal of the reform.

The problem is, is there going to be a prime minister from the left? I think that’s the key here. And Macron could just name whoever he wants as a prime minister.

Obviously, there could be some blocking and stalling, and there could be a lot of instability, but maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe the whole point of creating this chaos is, and I’m not talking in terms of conspiracies, I’m just talking in terms of political calculations, that a head of a state like Macron, who wants to have a third term, and he’s said it before, he wants a third term, and obviously his whole point now is to destroy the left and kick back into the left. So there could be just this stalling for months and months until either people forget about the reform or until it’s too late to reverse it.

The other problem is also the MEDEF, which is, I guess you could call it the union of the CEOs, basically. So that’s an industry body. It represents companies, the biggest companies in France, the interests of the corporate class.

And obviously, they have been supporting Macron’s reform, the pension reform. So there could be a lot of pushback from the corporate class, but also there could be a lot of pushback from the financial market. So there could be a lot of repercussions.

Let’s say the France Insoumise or the Nouveau Front Populaire, they managed to reverse the reform, then France could be punished on the international financial market by having access to more expensive credit lines, by having their access barred for their companies, barred on some stock markets. It could be anything. So I think there is a possibility of the reform being rolled back, but there will be consequences if this happens.

Let us have a look at international politics for a moment. France is a key European country, and France under Macron presented a couple of times very ambitious plans, either for European strategic autonomy, that was long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but still it was an ambitious idea. Recently, Macron also spoke about sending French soldiers to Ukraine, and France is active in defense policy, even by having their soldiers in Romania.

So the question to you is, would this international policy line be continued under the new government, or under a new government that emerges from these unstable conditions, or will there be a change?

I don’t think this will be a priority in the first few months. It cannot be the priority, because all the focus is on what happens in France, in terms of internal politics, be it the pension reform, immigration reform, social security reform, investment in industries and increasing the number of jobs in France. Most of the focus will continue to be there in the next coming months.

Basically, that’s why people voted for either the National Rally, the extreme right, or that’s why they voted for the left. They didn’t vote for them thinking about the foreign policy. They really care about what happens to them. And a lot of Macron’s policies, foreign policies, they were not followed through always. He had this idea of sending troops on the ground in Ukraine. It was all just talk. It was all just words thrown out there just to make a sensation. It wasn’t followed through, and I don’t think he could follow through.

He depends on NATO. He depends on a lot of other circumstances to follow through with this. If the prime minister comes from the left, there could be some small changes in terms of their approach to Palestine and the war in Gaza. I think that’s where a lot of the polemics have happened surrounding anti-Semitism on the left and the far right accusing the left of being anti-Semitic, while the far right party in France was founded by a former Waffen SS soldier! So this is a question that could be touched upon. But as we’re talking, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s less and less news about what’s going on in Gaza.

Ni droite, ni gauche, français — who are French nationalists? 

So the fact that it’s not really in the media’s focal point at the moment, I’m not sure that this is going to be a topic of debate in the next few months. In terms of integration within the EU or staying in the EU or leaving the EU, there was a shift also on the far right. Marine Le Pen, she used to be very vocal against the EU a few years ago, and it was all clearly very opportunistic. It all happened when the UK was going through Brexit, when it voted Brexit, and then it was going through that. Marine Le Pen was very vocal at the time. She was saying there will be a Frexit. They used to have another presidential candidate talk about a Frexit back in 2012, 14, 16, and especially in 2017. But as soon as the negative effects of Brexit started to kick in in the UK, basically Marine Le Pen switched her view on this. She didn’t talk again about exiting the EU.

There was a complete change of policy. We’ve seen with Meloni in Italy that there has also been a small change, this idea of maybe changing the EU from the inside if the far right gets into power. So there could be some pressure from the far right now that they have a lot of seats in the parliament in terms of talking more overtly about changing the EU policies, giving France more sovereignty, or putting more pressure on talking about immigration and security.

But I don’t think it’s going to be the main focus in the next few months. Basically what’s happening now is something that has never happened before, not under the current constitution, which was applied from 1958-59 onwards. This situation has never happened.

There has been a situation, or actually two, I think, situations in the past where the president was from a party and the prime minister was from the opposing party. But there was still a form of majority in the parliament, even though it was from the opposing force. And so that was called cohabitation.

And the political game was about the president and the prime minister trying to find common ground where they could and fighting each other on specific topics. But in this situation where there is clearly no absolute majority, none of the three forces have enough seats to be automatically seen as sending the prime minister, but all three of them also come from three different directions, or at least they pull in three different directions. They don’t have any common ground at all.

If anything, the far right might have some common ground with the center right in terms of neoliberal policies, but that’s it. So this is true, and I don’t like using the word unprecedented because it has been used so many times during the pandemic, but really this is an unprecedented situation in France, and we actually don’t know what could happen. Everything that I’m saying now, everything that other analysts are saying is just speculation at this point.

So anything could happen.

So the final question must touch our region or regions, Central Europe and Southeastern Europe. You said that nothing new would happen in French foreign policy because it was not a priority to any of the voter groups to have a change in this aspect. They all voted because they were either satisfied with their lives or dissatisfied with Macron’s policies. They wanted to keep Macron in power or oust him. But still, France is also active in our region as one of the key European countries, and if we look beyond this horizon of a few months, do you expect anything new to happen here in the French, Central European, or Southeastern European relations?

Yeah, this is a very difficult question to look beyond the first few months since we have no idea what is going to happen. I mean, the way France interacts with Central and Eastern Europe is really just through business and through the military. There is a little bit of cultural cooperation, especially with Romania in terms of the Francophonie and the French cultural space.

I mean, for example, with the French cultural space, it all depends on the budget. So if there is enough budget, probably budget for culture, then there will be more and more activities surrounding this. In terms of business and the military, I don’t think we need to look at politics to understand what’s happening in the relationship between France and Eastern Europe.

It’s all about what the business wants. Who are the big business players, the French business players, investing in Eastern Europe? We have Auchan, we have Carrefour, we have a few other big names. They don’t have any interest in disrupting any relationship. It’s all about business. It’s all about making profits and continuing to invest. In terms of the business world and the business leaders, they prefer continuity. So they’re going to want to continue having the same ties with Eastern Europe, which is a very lucrative market for them. Wages are low, but consumption is on the rise, even though the wages are low. So they’re going to want this to continue. Obviously, having Macron in power for the business class, this has been basically a boon for them.

It has been amazing. They’ve been flooded with cash by the Macron government. There have been a lot of subsidies and all sorts of schemes to help businesses invest and stay afloat.

If the left-wing coalition gets to have a prime minister and if they get to impose at least part of their policies, then there might be some small changes in terms of how much money is going into the pockets of these big corporations. But overall, I don’t see any reason for the economic and cultural ties to continue. I think the question would be whether or not if the left-wing coalition gets more power and let’s say they get a prime minister, I think the military ties might be put into question a little bit, depending on how the left-wing coalition wants to deal with the Ukraine war.

There’s no indication to say that the left-wing coalition wants to send more soldiers or French soldiers in Ukraine. This was actually just something that Macron said and no other leader in the EU ever said this. Even the people in his camp were surprised by his allegations.

In my view, that was just a bit of bluff. He just wanted a bit more attention from the media and from other people. He just wanted to show that he is a leader, that he has something to say on the international scene.

But in terms of actually doing things, he talks more than he does. So again, I don’t see any reason for the ties not to continue, even with the left-wing government. If, let’s just say, this wild thing happens and there is a far-right prime minister, or if there was a possibility of a far-right prime minister, there could have been a few implications in terms of their ties with Eastern Europe, maybe some strengthened ties with Hungary, for example, because of the far-right approach and closeness.

But at this point in time, I see no reason for that to happen.

The New Popular Front, or the Old Third Way? 

Okay, so the essential conclusion after the elections in France is that France is entering in a period of turmoil, or at least in a period of great political instability. I also don’t like to use the word unprecedented too much, but indeed to anyone familiar with the newest history of France, there has never been so far a situation when the parliament was divided into three almost equal parts, stemming from different political traditions and having completely different priorities in their political programs. And yet, somebody must rule this country because new elections can’t be called soon.

Maria Guevara, a Romanian activist who has lived for quite a big part of her life in France and who is still following French politics very closely, was today with us to explain more about the French elections and their outcome. Thank you, Maria, for your answers, comments, and I invite you to follow Cross Border Talks on every channel where we are available. That is on social media, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Of course, also the sound platforms like SoundCloud. We are here for you and we expect you to join us in the future editions of Cross Border Talks. Thank you and goodbye.

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