If there is a situation in France in which Macron and Bardeira are co-governed, I am afraid that it will not be as relatively calm as the previous three "left-right co-governance".
▲On June 30, outside a polling station in Letouquet, France, French President Emmanuel Macron (second from left) communicated with the public after the vote. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
Text | Xu Lifan
According to Xinhua News Agency, the first round of voting in the French National Assembly election began at 8 o'clock local time on June 30, with more than 4,000 candidates from multiple political parties vying for 577 seats.
The latest news is that at 20 o'clock local time on June 30 (2 o'clock on July 1, Beijing time), the first round of voting in the French National Assembly election ended. Preliminary vote counts show that in the first round of voting, the far-right National Alliance won 33% of the votes, leading the vote. The Left Alliance "New Popular Front" received 28.5% of the votes, ranking second; The ruling Ba'ath Party and the centrist coalition came in third with 22 percent of the vote.
Under France's electoral system, a candidate can be directly elected if he or she wins more than half of the votes cast in the first round of voting in his constituency and his or her votes exceed 25% of the registered voters in his constituency. However, most constituencies will need a second round of voting to determine the winner. As a result, it is difficult to predict the exact distribution of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, and the final results will not be known until the end of the second round of voting on 7 July.
But according to preliminary vote counts, far-right parties are likely to gain a majority in the National Assembly and form a cabinet for the first time since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
If this is the case, Bardeira, the president of the National League, who was born in September 1995, is likely to become the new prime minister of the French government.
Who is Bardeira
Baldeira was born in a working-class neighborhood in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, northeast of Paris, to immigrant parents of Italian origin, and he was an only child. In Bardeira's account, his teenagers spent time in dangerous neighborhoods, such as seeing drug dealers hanging out outside his apartment.
Bardeira later said that he had entered politics because of the abnormalities he had experienced in the ghetto, and that he wanted to prevent the whole of France from becoming like this.
However, some media pointed out that Bardeira's self-description of his early life was likely to create a persona that was conducive to his political goals. In fact, he moved out of the slums at a young age and attended a semi-private school.
At the age of 16, Bardeira joined the National Front, the predecessor of the National League, and later studied geography at the Sorbonne. In the French general election in September 2017, the 39-year-old Macron defeated the presidential candidate of the "National Front" Le Pen, becoming the youngest president in French history. It was likely that the incident irritated Bardeira, who was 22 years old at the time. He then dropped out of school and devoted himself entirely to politics, when he was a member of the Île-de-France Regional Council.
In 2019, Bardeira became the leading candidate of the National League in the European Parliament, and was elected as a member of the European Parliament and served as the vice president of the National League. From 2022 he was president of the National League.
Le Pen, the de facto leader of the National Rally, made Bardeira president in order to concentrate on seeking the presidency in the general election. But Macron was furious and dissolved the National Assembly for a new election, allowing Bardeira to take the lead in getting infinitely closer to power.
▲On June 30, Bardeira (first from left), president of the National Alliance, voted at a polling station in Garche, near Paris, France. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
The fourth "left-right co-governance" will not be calm
If Bardeira, who joined the far-right party at the age of 16, really has a chance to become the prime minister of France, then there will be a fourth "left-right co-governance" political pattern in France.
In France, during Mitterrand's presidency from 1986 to 1988 and from 1993 to 1995, there were two "left-right co-governance" of leftist presidents and right-wing prime ministers. At that time, Mitterrand was ruled with Chirac. The outside world described the two as having jointly performed a "double-headed politics" under the condition of "mutual hostility and not without reverence".
From 1997 to 2002, when it was Chirac's turn to be president, there was a third "left-right co-governance" of right-wing presidents and left-wing prime ministers in France. At that time, Chirac was co-ruled by Jospin of the left-wing camp. This co-governance led to a major overhaul of the French political system, with the presidency being changed from seven to five years.
At that time, it was the peak of French football, and the footage of Chirac, Jospin and the head coach of the French football team, Jacques, lifting the Hercules Cup together in front of the Elysee Palace was widely spread. In the first round of the 2002 French general election, Le Pen defeated Jospin for the first time, marking the beginning of the rise of far-right parties in France.
If there is a situation in France in which Macron and Bardeira are co-governed, I am afraid that it will not be as relatively calm as the previous three "left-right co-governance". The unwritten rule of "left-right co-governance" is that the president is in charge of foreign affairs and the prime minister is in charge of domestic affairs. But what the National League wants to meddle in most now is diplomacy.
Bardeira has previously made it clear that he will challenge Macron on international issues, including cutting France's contribution to the EU budget, reversing Macron's commitment to build a "credible European defense system", controlling the scale of aid to Ukraine, and so on.
Le Pen went further, she said in an interview with French media a few days ago that "Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces is an honorary title for the president, and only the prime minister holds real power", hinting that the president's command will be weakened by controlling finances.
One can imagine what it would be like if there was a fourth "left-right co-governance" in France.
▲This is the scene of the meeting of the French National Assembly taken in Paris, France on January 30. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
Does Macron still have a chance to turn things around?
In the face of the current decline, the ruling coalition's main response is to make public the inappropriate remarks of the Nasional candidate, as a reminder to voters not to vote wrong.
Le Pen once advocated the complete abolition of dual citizenship, and now the policy of the National Alliance is also in important departments such as defense, nuclear, and intelligence, and must be held by purely French. The ruling party camp has therefore accused the National League of racism. This strategy was clearly not successful enough.
Therefore, the role of the "New Popular Front", formed by the French Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the "French Indomitation Party", among others, is all the more important. The New Popular Front is currently in second place in the polls and will be crucial in stopping the National Alliance.
However, Macron recently warned that both the far-left "French Insubservience Party" and Le Pen's far-right "National Rally" have pursued a divisive policy, which has exacerbated tensions in French society, and if they win, it could trigger a "civil war".
With the polls trailing, this strategy of firing the bow left and right is clearly unwise. Due to Macron's tough attitude, the "New Popular Front" has announced that if it wins, it will make a complete break with Macron's policies.
If there is indeed a pattern of "left-right co-governance" of the youngest president and the youngest prime minister in France, it is likely that we will see Macron and Bardeira attend together and speak their own words on important international occasions such as the G7 summit and the EU summit in the future, and may also see the scene of Bardeira's impeachment in parliament - if the left-wing camp and the Macron camp give up their previous suspicions.
Either way, it would mean great upheaval for France and the European Union.
Written by Xu Lifan (Columnist)
Editor / Chi Daohua
Proofreading / Yang Li
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