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FRENCH ELECTIONS

Ex-president Hollande surprise candidate in French election

Former French Socialist president Francois Hollande on Saturday said he is to stand again for parliament in legislative elections -- a political comeback that took even his allies on the left by surprise.

Published: 15 June 2024 17:29 CEST

Former French President Francois Hollande waves as he arrives to attend the annual dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France at the Louvre Carrousel in Paris on May 6, 2024. Hollande has said he would stand again for parliament in the upcoming elections. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

Hollande, France’s president from 2012-2017, left office with record levels of unpopularity and is detested by some within the radical left while even the Socialist leadership regard him with suspicion.

But he has had a relatively high media profile in the weeks leading up to President Emmanuel Macron’s dramatic calling of snap elections to combat the rise of the far right.

Hollande said he will stand as an MP for the southwestern Correze department for the New Popular Front, a left-wing union for the elections including Socialists, hard-left, Greens and Communists.

“An exceptional decision for an exceptional situation,” Hollande told reporters in the department’s main town of Tulle, describing his comeback.

Hollande has already backed the new broad left-wing union saying that we “must all do everything to make sure the far right does not come to power in France”.

Hollande is not the first president to run for legislative elections after leaving the Elysee Palace. In 1984, three years after his defeat against Francois Mitterrand in presidential elections, Valery Giscard d’Estaing was elected MP for the Puy-de-Dome department.

Officially, the Socialist Party reacted cooly to the move with the head of its election commission Pierre Jouvet simply saying that it “takes note” of the candidacy.

But one senior party figure, asking not to be named, said they were “devastated” by the news while admitting: “We said we wanted the broadest possible left wing.”

The elections, with a first round on June 30 and second on July 7, were called by Macron after the far right trounced his own centrist ruling party in this month’s European elections.

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Cohabitation

The far-right Rassemblement National of three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and current party leader Jordan Bardella are tipped to be the party with most seats after the second round on July 7th.

If the RN and its allies did secure a majority in the Assemblée Nationale – and current polling suggests this is doubtful – Macron would find himself in a “cohabitation“, in which the president and government are from opposing parties.

Post-war France has experienced three such forced marriages. All were between the left and the centre-right with the last from 1997-2002 between President Jacques Chirac and Socialist premier Lionel Jospin.

Cohabitation: What happens in France’s political ‘forced marriages’?

A cohabition between the Macron and his far-right arch-enemies would likely be a much unhappier affair.

While the far-right would be able to implement part of its domestic programme, on, for example, curtailing immigration, only the president can call a referendum or trigger a vote on constitutional changes.

The president, who usually sets foreign and defence policy, could also find his hands tied if the RN appointed nationalist defence and foreign ministers opposed to his worldview.

Coalition

France has spurned coalitions since the post-war 4th Republic (1946-1958) when the country went through 22 governments in 12 years.

Since losing his parliamentary majority in 2022, Macron has sought to cobble together alliances in parliament on a vote-by-vote basis or to force through legislation without a vote rather than form a pact with another party.

The RN or the left could try do the same if they fall short of a majority but a minority government of the far-right or left would likely fail to pass a vote of no confidence.

Aware of the risks, RN leader Bardella has said he will refuse to become prime minister unless he wins an outright majority.

Macron’s camp hopes that in the event of a hung parliament it could form a coalition with moderates of the left and right.

As part of its outreach to possible allies, Macron’s party has not entered candidates in 67 constituencies where centre-right or centre-left candidates are running.

But Macron has limited his options by putting the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) — the dominant force in the NFP — on a par with the far-right in what he calls the country’s “extremes”. He accuses LFI of anti-Semitism, which it rejects.

Caretaker government

Another option would be for Macron to appoint a technocratic non-partisan government which all parties could get behind.

Camille Bedock, a political scientist at the Emile Durckheim centre in Bordeaux, cites the example of Italy, where respected former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi formed a national unity government in 2021 when Italy was in turmoil. It lasted a year-and-a-half.

Bedock said Macron could also decide to leave the current government headed by his party’s Gabriel Attal in place in a caretaker capacity for a year. He could then call new elections.

This would have the benefit of ensuring continuity through the Olympic Games (July 26th – August 11th) when the country will be under intense global scrutiny.

Whether the far-right or left would support such a move, which would effectively buy Macron time to try turn around his presidency, is highly uncertain.

Macron resigns

The most dramatic scenario would see Macron resign if faced with the prospect of being neutered by the far right or the hard left.

Le Pen, who is expected to try succeed Macron in 2027 presidential polls, has warned that he “will have no choice but to resign” in the event of a “political crisis”.

Macron has vowed to remain on office until the end of his second term in 2027, whatever the outcome.

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