Emmanuel Macron’s identity policies fall short at the local level

When the results began on Sunday night, it was clear that French voters had made a humiliating rebuke of Emmanuel Macron’s political party. regional elections less than a year for presidential polls.

Macron’s “old political world” rivals were overjoyed to win the presidency they crushed in 2017. But at the president’s camp, the atmosphere was not good.

“The movement has a tremendous challenge,” said Roland Lescure, a member of parliament for Macron’s centrist party. “We’re five years old, and we haven’t elected many on the ground. . . Not gelled “.

The French president’s La République en Marche (LREM), which won control of the National Assembly four years ago, won left-wing parties on Sunday, gaining about 7 percent of the vote on Sunday – roughly 38 percent center-right parties and 34 percent Socialists and other leftists. some.

Regional governments have limited powers, especially around transport and education policies, but over the weekend the winners wanted to represent the vote as a rehearsal for next year’s election and highlighted issues of national concern, such as law and order and the environment.

Xavier Bertrand, winner of the Hauts-de-France regional center, confirmed Macron’s desire to run for president next year. “This result gives me the strength to go for the help of all the French,” he said.

“La République en Marche does not exist,” said an adviser to one of Macron’s rivals, who said macronism “will become a parenthesis of French politics.”

Analysts have warned that the failure, while embarrassing, is unlikely to do lasting damage to Macron’s 10-month re-election campaign for the presidency.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rassemblement party – which until now considered Macron as its main rival for the presidency in 2017 – also stressed that it did not achieve good results as it failed to gain control of about 20% of a single regional council. of the national vote. They also highlighted the low turnout: only a third of French voters voted.

“This [the poor LREM showing] it won’t necessarily be a problem in national elections, when a lot of attention will be paid to campaign personalities, ”said Christèle Lagier, assistant professor of politics at the University of Avignon.

“[Macron’s] LREM has really made an effort to run in the non-presidential election, “said Emile Leclerc, director of research at the Odoxa polling station.” But it’s a presidential system… And Macron is becoming increasingly popular today. almost 50 percent in favor, this is high “.

It was not really a political party that exploded in French politics, but a person – Emmanuel Macron

Macron’s supporters also do not deny the importance of the failure of regional elections or the need to rebuild the LREM as an effective electoral machine.

Macron had neither the right-wing nor the left-wing insurgency campaigns in 2017 and the victories he won in the presidential election at the age of 39 led French politics to waters yet to emerge.

If Macron were re-elected next year, no one knows whether voters will continue the tradition of the past 20 years after electing a National Assembly that is dominated by the president’s party to set his agenda. Failure to do so would force Macron to appoint a prime minister from another political group, in a system called “coexistence”.

Lescure was optimistic. “Hopefully, by the time the presidential election arrives, people will become passionate again,” he said. “The scenario is likely to be the majority [for the president] but it will be more fragmented than we had in 2017. “

“It’s going to be harder than it used to be,” he calculated.

Whatever happens to Macron, the future of his LREM party is uncertain. If it fails next year, it may disappear or disappear a few years later after two terms approved by the constitution.

It didn’t help that Macron had weakened his new party by supplying advisers, ministers and parliamentarians after winning the first election in 2017. Nor were key members of his government — Prime Minister Jean Castex and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian — taken from traditional right-wing and left-wing parties, undermining the idea that his party had offered a new beginning in the past.

“It wasn’t really the political party that exploded in French politics, it was one person – Emmanuel Macron,” Leclerc said of Odox. “If Emmanuel Macron were not there, if he left French politics, the party would fall completely.”