Essay by Eric Worrall
President Macron has called a snap parliamentary election after devastating losses to right wing challenger Marine Le Pen in recent European elections.
France’s snap election: what happened, why, and what’s next?
In a shock move, president Emmanuel Macron called a parliamentary election, describing it as ‘an act of confidence’
Jon Henley Europe correspondent Mon 10 Jun 2024 08.01 AEST
In a shock move, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has called a snap parliamentary election that will be held within the next 30 days. What happened exactly, why – and what might come next?
What’s the story?
After suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally (RN) in the European parliamentary elections, the French president on Sunday evening unexpectedly announced a snap general election.
According to usually accurate projections, Macron’s centrist list, headed by MEP Valérie Hayer, scored between 14.8% and 15.2% in the European poll, less than half the 32%-33% tally booked by RN, whose lead candidate was the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, 28.
The president won re-election in 2022. His current term runs until spring 2027 and he cannot stand again.
What were Macron’s reasons?
The president said the decision was a “serious and heavy” one, but that he could not resign himself to the fact that “far-right parties … are progressing everywhere on the continent”.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/09/frances-snap-election-what-happened-why-and-whats-next
Bear in mind, when “The Guardian” say “Far Right”, they mean anyone to the right of President Biden. Le Pen is no President Trump. But she has promised to cancel wind and solar subsidies and instead concentrate on nuclear power, and she has also indicates she wants to protect French manufacturing – she regards driving manufacturing offshore with harsh climate rules but still using the manufactured products, importing the products instead of manufacturing them in France, as “climate hypocrisy”.
The following is from April 2022.
Climate discussed for 20 minutes in 3-hour-long Macron-Le Pen debate
By Nelly Moussu | Euractiv France | translated by Daniel Eck 21 Apr 2022
During the three-hour-long debate between French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, climate was discussed for just 20 minutes, despite being one of the most anticipated topics. EURACTIV France reports.
Climate was one of the ten topics on the debate’s agenda on Wednesday (20 April), ahead of the final round of voting on Sunday.
…
Le Pen wants a slowed transition
For Le Pen, French purchasing power is at the heart of her discourse on the environment. The far-right leader promises to lower VAT on fuel, gas and heating oil while exiting “the European electricity market” to restore the purchasing power of the French.
While favouring the ecological transition, Le Pen wants “it to be slower than what is being imposed on the French, to enable them to cope with it.”
According to her, the current government is asking too much of the French people, and she blamed Macron for his “punitive ecology”.
Le Pen also believes that “wind power is an ecological and economic absurdity”. She promised a referendum on the dismantling of wind turbines and said she had “a plan to develop nuclear power” at the start of her mandate.
…
Read more: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/climate-discussed-for-20-minutes-in-3-hour-long-macron-le-pen-debate/
President Trump said nice things about Marine Le Penn back in 2017, as far as I know he still feels the same about her – though at the time Trump’s focus was mostly Le Pen’s pushback against Europe’s open borders.
If President Macron loses ground in this snap election, he will still be President – it’s a Parliamentary election, not a Presidential election. But Macron will be even more of a lame duck President than he is already, his hands would be tied on many issues, it would be an enormous embarrassment for him.
What can we conclude from all this, with regards to the Paris Agreement? Le Pen has said she plans to uphold France’s Paris commitments, but she also makes it clear the Paris Agreement is not her main priority. If greens play hardball, my crystal ball tells me Le Pen would choose economic sanity over damaging climate commitments. So we are seeing an entertaining though slim possibility that France is kicked out of the Paris Agreement, maybe even before Trump wins office at the end of the year.
Sacre bleu!
Macron is a gambling man. In the best Rothschild tradition
As much as they’d like to keep the citizens in the dark, it is the City of Lights.
You do know that the reason Paris got the name “City of Lights” was because it was the first major city to be fully lit with gas lamps.
The lefties want to turn Paris into the city of dark.
Yes, it’s in-Seine.
So funny . Its false. It dates from the 1600s
Candle lit streets? Are you serious? SMH
Baltimore was ahead of Paris for gas lamps. Nothing unique about when Paris had gas lamps
1600s used tallow candles and then oil lamps, not a problem
this lamp design is a pastiche
Paris was the first major city to go to street gas lamps on a large scale. Baltimore isn’t major. So yes, Paris was unique among the major cities of the world at that time. It was a deliberate decision by the city’s leaders at that time, to become modern, and a leader amongst cities worldwide.
Again, that is why Paris got the name of “City of Lights”.
Macron au fromage.
Lightly of topic, but:
Greens suffer massive losses – young voters in particular turn away
Youth vote results at 4,500 schools
Why would France leave the Paris Agreement when they can just pay it lip service? That’s all that matters — say the right things while doing whatever is needed to keep in power.
The China solution.
Paris agreement is legal mechanism which required those who sign to pass new laws – which France did- making it Carbon Neutral by 2050
“France sets 2050 carbon-neutral target with new law”-Reuters
While its desirable to pay lip service the new laws would have to be repealed first
From the article:
“What were Macron’s reasons?
The president said the decision was a “serious and heavy” one, but that he could not resign himself to the fact that “far-right parties … are progressing everywhere on the continent”.”
Things are looking up! The Left is worried about the growing influence of the Right.
The growing influence of the Right is what will save us, if we are to be saved.
“After suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally (RN) in the European parliamentary elections..”
Every political party that espouses some popular political change these days is described as “far Right”. The term, as used, usually says more about the establishment and the establishment media than it does about the intentions of the “far right” politicians.
The opinions of people like myself, who would still describe themselves as centre-left, are these days described as far right.
What Macron really thinks about the Paris Agreement comes about tenth on the list of things important to him or the electorate. Same as the UK and US.
Every political party that espouses some popular political change these days is described as “far Right”.
Or…. Populist – ie what people want
I linked a comment here at JoNovas blog. From a German newspaper.
Thanks for the link, I do like to see what the non-Anglophone press says. Unfortunately, it is paywalled.
The English text is the translation of the paywalled German text, so no loss
“ crushing defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally”
Its not crushing defeat . The RN party got 30% of the vote.
being Europe theres many many parties .
But 1/3 of seats doesnt mean anything.
Cant compare with US system where all the politicians squeeze into only 2 parties
Being the largest vote getter of many parties, 30% of the vote means a tremendous amount.
Really, stop commenting so ignorantly. Shoo, fly.
that’s bollox -only 50% could be bothered to vote for an EU parliament which we nobody has a clue what it does.
(ever tried to contact your EURO MP – what does he do if you even knew his name??
All the FN did was to give a very unpopular president a black eye.
The usual politicians who think they had a job for life are sh..tting their pants now – cos they know they will be shown the door from their nice chic
parisien lifestyles.
Unpopular thanks to his insistence in pushing thru highly unpopopular legislation in the assembly without a vote, then beating the daylights out of people who dare go out onto the streets to demonstrate against it…
FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL, and Le Pen was one of the most corrupt in the EU parliament.
Thanks for the links showing all of Le Pen’s corruption.
I am sure they will, if provided, lead to the typical leftists rags.
As long as you don’t label Fascists or Nazis as right wing. They are not. They belong to the Left in the same group as Marxist, Communist or Socialist.
For me Extreme Right is a Free Market Small Government system.
“Things are looking up! The Left is worried about the growing influence of the Right.”
The shift is entirely due to the unrelenting ruinous piling on of misery on citizens by the left. On top of destruction of industry, business and agriculture, an open door immigration policy destroyed European culture. The continent has been a socialist breeding ground since the 19th century and UK for 75 yrs. By 2000 the Tories had even shifted left, joining labour and the greens left of centre and leaving no real choice for voters. But, the crowding left of center has left a big space for UKip.
Yeah, a gage of the depth of the self Inflicted wound by the left is that people who never would have voted for the right have been driven to it. With their constituents being rescued from hell by the right, the left are likely to be in the penalty box for generations.
Nope.
As soon as the “right” rights the ship and gets the economy working again, the left will offer all kinds of financial inducements from the now balanced budget that the suckers (as in those who succor off the public trough) who vote according to their personal wallets will go LEFT again.
Prime example is after the years of Thatcher getting the UK out of the leftists created hole and on a sound financial footing the voters dumped the conservatives for all the labor’s promised goodies.
A Paris Agreement with no Paris, were going to need a new name.
“Environmental Suicide Pact”, perhaps?
While favouring the ecological transition, Le Pen wants “it to be slower than what is being imposed on the French, to enable them to cope with it. … Le Pen has said she plans to uphold France’s Paris commitments…”
Again, we see that all of these “conservatives”, “republicans”, “right-wings” “alternatives” etc. are a part of the climate-industrial complex. Since 1980s they allowed CAGW narrative to develop, and they are also deeply invested in the green scam and want their piece of the pie. Their goal is to scale it down to make it more practical for the parasitic green economy to be forever attached to the real economy.
The German AfD isn’t part of CAGW scam, in contrast.
SIEMENS, a German company, is in wind generator business fueled by CAGW scam. To what extent does AfD oppose the scam knowing this?
What have Siemens and AfD in common ?
One an enterprise, the other a political party, what exactly will you suggest ?
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/populist-afd-snd-gears-german-climate-efforts
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-far-right-afd-profits-from-climate-change-spat/a-65797438
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-right-wing-afd-calls-end-all-climate-action-efforts
Krishna, you convinced me AfD is better than others.
I think the blame lies on both sides. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher is credited (blamed?) with starting the avalanche.
Seeing that 5% to 10% of the electorate were potentially voting for the Green parties, politicians from both major parties tried to scoop up this part of the vote, apparently thinking this was a crucial election-deciding factor.
Unfortunately, that’s how the green troll salesman got its foot in the door. And it wasn’t just selling double-glazed windows or hatred of nuclear power. After ~1990 it became the main vehicle for Marxism/Leninism that had failed in direct appeals to voters. This combined with those who just aren’t being served well by existing political parties.
If serious politicians on both sides could find the courage to not chase these hypothecated votes then they could do everyone a big favour. Current policies are making the whole cake smaller, whoever gets the slices as they are divided up. And many people are quite happy with that. They frequently have a large slice of the cake and/or don’t think their slice will shrink as a practical result of their opinions.
Yes, MT, a conservative, was the godmother of the CAGW narrative. She opportunistically embraced CAGW scare in her fight with coal miners. She also found it a useful common enemy when the Cold War seemingly ended and Gorbachev became the West darling.
In general, no politicians on any side are seeking truth, the interests of the common people, society etc., but rather how they can exploit the situation to their own benefit, to advance their carriers within their networks in which the biggest role is played by the banking industry.
The banking industry decided that they can attach a parasitic climate-industrial complex to world economy, in which people would essentially do useless work (similar to building pyramids to satisfy somebody’s ego), but a lot of money could be printed and revolved in it, and they would be the masterminds of it and the beneficiaries of money flows in the artificially created green investment schemes. Politicians are just catering to the bankers, after all, many of them belong to the same families.
Doing all of this useless work in climate-industrial complex is an alternative to continuous destruction of property in wars that Orwell has foreseen.
There are only 2 sides possible. Or you are on the Big Brother Government side or on the Small Government Free market side. Otherwise you have the same as we see in the UK Labour 1 and Labour 2.
If they are Big Government they are part of the problem. If they really are fascist they are left wing.
I don’t think the Right knows how to deal with human-caused climate change. They allow the climate alarmists to intimidate them with climate change propaganda, and since climate change is such a complicated subject, they, for the most part, don’t feel they are sufficiently knowledgeable to push back on climate alarmist claims, so they go along with them to one degree or another, or they remain silent.
Republicans should make Dr. William Happer their spokesman for countering the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) propaganda put out by the climate alarmists. Dr. Happer calls CAGW a hoax. And it is.
I have a different perspective on this. In 1980s the combined elites made a decision to launch the CAGW scam to create green climate-industrial sector, to institute direct and indirect carbon taxes and control masses. Different parts of ruling political spectrum vary in their motivation and benefits, perceived or real, and it is understandable how and why the Left was more active and seized the agenda, but none of them fundamentally oppose the scam. They are all a gang of arrogant pathological liars, lying both to the public and themselves, unable to distinguish these lies and believing them.
Republicans are ambivalent because they are as much part of the problem as Democrats. The US political system is more like a two-headed dragon, whose goal is to fill the same belly. The system allows some back and forth discourse between heads, with multiple voices inside each multipolar head, including some voices of reason among them.
Still, Bush W administration actively pushed green hydrogen economy, and both parties approved the legal language defining CO2 as pollutant.
Ah yes, the transition from left versus right to top-down versus bottom-up views of the world has been predicted since 1971, in the libertarian “Nolan Chart.” It is finally happening today. And it’s happening, in particular, on this thread.
What will they do when the truth comes out that CO2 does not play any measurable role in Earth’s climate.
Removing smog which blocks sunlight and sulfur which seeds clouds that block sunlight lets more of the Sun’s energy warm the oceans and land. That seems to be the cause of the warming.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/cutting-pollution-from-the-shipping-industry-accidentally-increased-global-warming-study-suggests
https://e360.yale.edu/features/aerosols-warming-climate-change
The increased Sun’s energy over the past 100 years which gets stored in the oceans is also probably a cause of the warming.
https://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/data/historical_tsi/
Don’t forget Earth’s declining magnetic field strength.
In the media’s vernacular, anyone not a far lefty is a “far right” politician or person. Or they use the term “hard right” – ever wonder why the term “hard left” is never used? Ever? Fidel Castro or Vladimir Lenin would never have been called “hard left”. Or even far left? Even Bernie Sanders never gets the label “far left” or “hard left”, though he obviously is.
Even AOC, a self described communist revolutionary, is never ever called “hard left” or “far left”. If she is labeled at all, she is described as a “progressive”, as if being radically leftist is a term of progress over all those neanderthals who are not communists.
The use of “far” or “hard” is a pejorative designed to make someone with that label appear vastly far out of the mainstream, weirdly, radically, fascistically to the right of most decent people.
You REALLY nailed there, Duane! Exactly! And that is how they hypnotize with language.
Funny, I was thinking of something else
if its usually for a US audience then its shorthand for ‘more right than existing right wing.’
France has a range of existing right and left parties . Macron and his party in centre
Then theres far right and far left for those … who are “further”
US with a two party system doesnt have that issue as people are either right or left of the main centrist parties. trump is far right !
Trump was a registered democrat from Aug 2001 through Sept 2009. Democrats did not call him “far right” during this time.
Leon Panetta was a republican all his life until 1971. When he was elected 8 times as a democrat house member beginning in 1976, no democrat ever called him “far right” although he worked in Washington previously for Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel and President Richard Nixon.
Defining Left and Right is hard. In America, all you have to do is change parties to defeat the label, apparently.
Trump is not far-right… except in the deluded mind of far-leftists.
he says he will suspend the constitution ..
Your TDS is showing.
Next thing we know, you will be claiming Trump says he is going to be a Dictator.
Anti war, anti globalist, pro labor is not “far right”.
The right is not pro-war, it’s just that the left is totally opposed to doing anything to oppose left wing terrorists.
Context is not your friend.
He was asked a hypothetical, and he answered within the frame of that hypothetical.
He never said he would suspend the constitution.
“trump is far right”
No, Trump is not far right. Trump is common sense.
Name a policy of Trump’s that is “far right”.
The Democrats call all Republicans “far right”. They want people to think every Republican is an anarchist who wants to overthrow the government. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There *are* anarchists and anti-government groups out there, but there’s not enough of them to fill a football stadium, so we’re talking about small numbers of extremists who have no real affiliation with the mainstream Republican Party. But Democrats want you to think every Republican is like that. Democrats lie a LOT.
Trump is certainly a nationalist. He leads that wing of the Republican party for sure, and it is a dominant wing, for sure, at least at this moment.
But the media loves to conflate “nationalist” with far right as if they are synonomous. Fidel was a nationalist too, but he was also a communist. Ditto with the leaders of the former Soviet Union, along with the current President Putin. Internationalists can be either left or right in their political views.
Being nationalist has nothing to do with left or right. It’s a separate axis on the political spectrum, with nationalist at one end and internationalist at the other end.
Politics has many axes, not just one.
“Being nationalist has nothing to do with left or right.”
I agree. I’m a nationalist myself. I think everyone should favor their own nation. It’s like favoring your own family. It doesn’t mean you hate other families just because you put your own family first.
In France, those who like socialism, just want to slow down it’s adoption by a little bit, are called far right?
Trump far right? Not on any rational scale.
It would be most amusing if the Paris Climate Agreement had to be renamed “The City That Shall Not Be Named Climate Agreement”.
Meanwhile in a small town called Thetford….
Thetford is in Norfolk, England. It falls under the District Council of Breckland, and Breckland in turn is part of the County Council of Norfolk.
You can gather from this that Breckland, and still more Thetford, are fairly small places. But they have global ambitions and are intent on saving the planet, or doing their bit towards that noble goal. So how is that going?
Well, Breckland District Council declared a climate emergency on September 19, 2019 and committed to achieving carbon neutrality within the district by 2035….They pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the entire district to net zero by 2035, which is considered a “whole area pledge”.
The good people of Thetford, or some of them, then decided to give this noble initiative all the help they could. Yes, you guessed right: Thetford Town Council declared a “climate emergency” and committed £30,000 to tackle it. So how did that go?
This decision sparked protests and disruptions during a council meeting in April 2023 by a group called Thetford Council Watch. The protesters objected to the climate emergency declaration and the spending allocation, arguing there were better ways to spend the money in the town.
The meeting descended into chaos during the public question segment when Thetford Council Watch took control and refused to stop speaking despite being asked by the chairman. One protester called the council “a panel of useless idiots.”
The acting town clerk, Alan Yorke, made a 999 call to Norfolk Police as the chairman failed to restore order, but police did not attend due to operational reasons. After nearly an hour-long suspension, the protesters eventually left, allowing the meeting to resume.
In response to this incident, the council decided to hire a private security team for future meetings, which Yorke stated was an “obligation” to protect councillors given the gravity of the situation. The security made its debut at a meeting on May 28, funded through the council’s budget.So in summary, Thetford Town Council’s climate emergency declaration and £30,000 allocation to address it led to protests that disrupted a council meeting, prompting the council to hire security guards to maintain order at subsequent meetings.
Source: perplexity.ai.
It all sounds very quaint. Perhaps if the council members and towns people could be persuaded to dress up in the manner of ‘Downton Abbey’, the BBC and PBS (its US wannabe) would pick up the broadcasting rights.
A better term than Climate Hypocrisy might be
Outsourcing Emissions (and their associated jobs) on locally used goods
Although “Climate Hypocrite” is still a good term
The weekend’s EU elections showed that Europeans are fed up with climate policies forced on them by bureaucrats, politicians, academics and radical environmentalists all of whose actions have just led to higher taxes and general living costs. Voters on that continent are experiencing the equivalent of being forced to ride on a plane/train/bus that keeps increasing the fare as the journey continues except there’s no guaranteed it’ll reach its destination. Likewise with climate policies. Citizens have been lured aboard an environmental bandwagon that continues to increase carbon taxes in order to subsidize inefficient and unreliable green products like wind and solar energy, EVs, heat pumps, etc. while enacting restrictions on travel, products, foods and anything that makes life more convenient, so that without a change in government they’d have no chance of rejecting the unworkable. More upcoming national elections in both Europe and North America are likely to show that people are likely to refuse to be railroaded into supporting unattainable climate and environmental goals.
very very little change in the numbers, mostly media beatups as click bait. they predicted a ‘wave’ based on polling and it didnt happen but they have to reframe the little change as something bigger
1) Turnout for EU elections is much lower than general elections
2) So many parties and proportional voting means “everybody wins”
The only real election was in Belgium where they had a general election at same time and greens got hammered !
But they vote for 9 parliaments as there is 3 language regions including a capital region plus senators and provinces legislatures .
You have to look at the whole picture. Italy, Scandinavian countries, Slovakia, and Holland. It’s a wave. Ireland also just elected new right wing council members. And now the EU elections. Expect the wave to continue.
forced by undemocratic mandate
More good news. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is a lie. An even bigger lie is that wind and solar can save us.
According to 2.4 billion Christians, 2 billion Islamists and 535 million Buddists, only following the teachings of people who died 2000 years ago can save us.
You,sir, are a prime example of an online a-hole.
“M14”
As in rifle? Just curious.
Yes, sir.
I used to carry an M14 in Vietnam, before they switched over to M16’s. I was there in 1968-1969.
There are several Vietnam vets who post on WUWT.
On a whim, I searched for M14 and on the page I found this claim, which surprised me.
“Why did the M14 fail in Vietnam?”
Now, that’s the first time I every saw a reference to an M14 “failing”, and wondered what they meant.
Here’s is the explanation:
“One particular technical problem was that the M14 was almost impossible to control when fired in automatic mode. Some soldiers even claimed that the M14 basically became an “anti-aircraft gun” after a few rounds of firing on automatic due to uncontrollable barrel climb.”
I’ll agree that an M14 on full automatic is hard to hang on to, but I wouldn’t call this a failing. Firing shorter bursts gets it under control, and that little clip-on bipod helped a lot.
I got to fire a Thompson Submachine gun in Vietnam on one occasion and it was harder to control than the M14.
When the M16 was first introduced into Vietnam, there were problems with the rifles misfiring, and some U.S. Marine units wanted their M14’s back. They said it didn’t matter how much they abused an M14, or how wet or muddy it got, it would still fire when called upon. They couldn’t say that for the M16.
The M16 is much improved since those early years.
Don’t leave out the Hindus. There are hundreds of millions of them who follow the teachings of people who died long ago.
on a trip to Italy recently our guide predicted change coming. It seemed his biggest complaint was not being allowed to use the heat more than two days a week the previous winter.
The RN is not far right. By any historical gage it is a centrist party.
France is in an unusual position in Europe with regard to “green energy”, since about 75% of its electrical needs are provided by nuclear power plants, with about another 10% from hydroelectric plants in the Alps and Massif Central mountains. Since neither nuclear nor hydroelectric plants emit CO2, France would be relatively unaffected by a push toward or away from wind and solar.
France still relies on natural gas for home heating, and on crude oil imports for transportation fuel, although there are many oil refineries in France, some of them run by French-owned corporations.
The political situation in France is rather complicated. The president of France is elected by popular vote every five years, but has less power than the American president, which mostly concerns foreign policy and the military. Domestic policy is guided by a Prime Minister and other “ministers” similar to the Cabinet secretaries in the USA, which require the support of a majority of the Assemblee Nationale (equivalent of our House of Representatives). It is possible in France to have a government (Prime Minister and supporting cabinet) of a different party from that of the President.
Marine Le Pen, the current leader of the Rassemblement National party, is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led an ultra-nationalist movement called the Front National in the 1980’s and 1990’s, which was then perceived as racist, and received only about 10% to 20% of the vote, and had few seats in parliament.
Due to increasing immigration to France, mostly from Arab countries in northern Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Libya), there has been increasing resentment from French nationals, so that the old Front National merged with center-right parties in recent years. Back in 2002, then-President Jacques Chirac (from a center-right party) famously admitted that “France cannot accept all the world’s misery”, and this favored the merger of the center-right with the Front National.
If a coalition of the center-right and far-right wins a majority in the upcoming parliamentary elections, Marine Le Pen could become Prime Minister, and lead French domestic policy with a group of like-minded ministers, while Macron would remain President for another three years and lead French foreign policy.
Le Pen will not stand in these parliamentary elections but wait for the next Presidential election, her deputy Jordan Bardella will stand and if the party wins then become Prime Minister serving with Macron. Macron will be playing tricks to wrong step Bardella in order to spike Le Pen’s chances. That’s the plan but all plans never survive first contact with the enemy.