France: right, left, or straight up and hanging by a thread?

        The votes of the second round are in from the national election that was called because of the success of France's far-right party, National Rally, in the election to the European parliament.  
        President Emmanuel Macron called this election as a means of weakening National Rally: how successful was it? Did he cut them off at the pass, or was it too much of a gamble, which could backfire in a diverse form of guises?  

Rassemblement National   
            An architype far right party, it began as Le Front National. Many used to claim that its roots are in the collaborationist regime of Vichy France during WW2, including the Drancy interment camp. While the founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, his successor and daughter Marine Le Pen and her recent successor Jordan Bardella are not Henri Pétain, there are still many bad features of questionable morality to the renamed version, Rassemblement National (RN), known as National Rally in English.  
           NR's views regarding immigration and race have only ever been loosely disguised. Whereas RN used to demand systematic repatriation of every single immigrant, it now has a slightly more moderate stance, deporting immigrants with a criminal record or even the unemployed. RN's goal since 2015 has been net legal immigration rate, evolving into Marine Le Pen proposing an end to family reunification, whereby children born to foreigners living in France would loose the right to automatic citizenship. Forced assimilation is a desire, with warnings that practices such as full veils are a symptom of the Islamisation of French culture. Connecting immigration to Islamic terrorism and proposing banning production of both halal and kosher meat would be enforced if a sufficient proportion of the electorate voted for RN which would be brought about because they are generally frustrated. 
             Le Pen stating that she is "against the visibility of Islam", but not Islam per se should be seen for what it truly is: Muslims aren't French enough, and therefore want to cause havoc. 

Tactical voting as a National Rally blocker 
          Collective action by enough French citizens who have widespread distaste for RN was brought about by wanting to prevent the worst possible eventuality: an RN government. In terms of seats, RN came third. The centre, roughly similar to President Macron, and the left gained more with RN, which believes that other parties were playing the system. 
         The centre and the left anti-RN quasi-coalition is a somewhat motley crew, mostly united by having a common enemy. Whatever the next government is, and whoever the next prime minister is, could take weeks to be assembled. Political Jenga is a symptom of voting for a party as a means of figuratively voting against RN could entail the French government and national assembly coming to resemble the Weimar Republic. This post WW1 and pre-Nazi period in Germany was characterized by political turmoil and violence, and economic hardship which was combined with new social freedoms and vibrant artistic movements. The resulting uncertainty brought with it frequent changes of government and Chancellor, therefore the forthcoming long period of haggling to form some semblance of a coalition government could entail similar uncertainty, either short term or continuous. In the meantime, the Olympics will be something of a surreal inconvenience.

All you can eat leftist-buffet, also known as New Popular Front
            Collectively, does being anti-something mean that the group is actually for something that they agree on? The left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), could end up being the most prominent feature of a hung parliament, as no single party is even close to having a majority. RN is not in power because of what Jordan Bardella terms to be "unnatural political alliances." What another RN character, Sébastien Chenu, described as a "quagmire" is fairly accurate. 
           The largest group by far in this alliance is France Unbowed, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon who is a somewhat stereotypical far-left radical. The hastily cobbled together alliance also consists of Greens, Communists and Socialists, in addition to France Unbowed. This jigsaw puzzle has the appearance of Loony Left plastered all over it. It will be up to President Macron to at least designate somebody to lead the talks to reach out to other parties and cobble together a coalition united by more than merely contempt for RN. 

It didn't completely backfire, however there is awkward longer term potential for la République française
            Engineered tactical voting, whereby some candidates withdrew to leave a single option/candidate for anti-right voters prevented many RN candidates from winning. While President Macron may not have engineered this, he might have guessed that this was going to transpire. Turnout was the highest for over 40 years. Despite NFP winning the most seats, the results of this election were still the best in RN's history. 
            President Macron has kept his Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, in office until a new government has been formed. With insufficient MPs to form a majority, the NFP would need to reach out to the centre rather than Jean-Luc Mélenchon merely haranguing the President in speeches with the volume set to 11. 
        Constitutionally, President Macron cannot run for a third term in 2027. While his legacy might not consist of having a right-wing extremist occupying the Prime Minister's office when he departs: If the result of his gamble doesn't deliver for the electorate, and the National Assembly and la République française ends up as something like the Weimar Republic, the next President could end up being Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen. 

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