President Emmanuel Macron’s disastrous snap election, the first round of which took place on Sunday, bears comparison with David Cameron’s decision to call the Brexit referendum in 2016.
In fairness to Cameron, it should be recalled that he had long held out the promise of a referendum. He had to keep it eventually. Macron, by contrast, was under no moral obligation to command the election of a new national assembly just because his party had done badly in the European elections.
There are similarities, however. The first is the overconfidence of the leaders involved. Having won both the 2015 general election and the Scottish independence referendum, David Cameron had formed a high opinion of his own political shrewdness. He dared to ride the tiger of public opinion on Europe, but then it tossed him off and ate him.
Macron, the president who had come from nowhere in 2017 and won re-election in 2022, also overestimated his magical powers. This was partly to do with his own narcissistic character and partly with the office of the French President, which thinks like an imperial court. Mr Macron’s haughty ways now make him hated even when what he says is worth saying. Governing via his overmighty secretary-general, Alexis Kohler, makes him isolated not only from voters, but from political colleagues.
On Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s Right-wing Rassemblement National (on nearly 33.4 per cent of the national vote) and its allies won 39 seats with the more than 50 per cent of the vote needed to prevent a second round. Macron’s party (20.7 per cent) won only two.
The second similarity relates to what happens next. In 2016, Cameron realised that he could not argue with a democratic decision of such a scale: he resigned.
For many other Remainers, however – notably Sir Keir Starmer – the instinctive reaction was to tell the people they had made a silly mistake and try to mingle law and politics to make them vote again, this time the “right” way. When this fantasy collapsed, they pressed ahead with complicated parliamentary shenanigans to prevent Brexit becoming law.
In the French case, the immediate reaction of the defeated parties – Mr Macron’s and those of the Left – is to co-operate to prevent Le Pen forming a government after the next round. It seems not to have occurred to them to try to improve their own democratic performance. Their energies are poured into thwarting the party with the widest popular support.
Since much of the impetus behind insurgent parties across Europe comes from frustration at not being listened to by elites, this is a bad tactic. If I were French and had felt tempted to vote for Le Pen in the first round, I should probably feel compelled to do so in the second this Sunday. If existing politicians have not got the message, they need to be told again, louder.
There is also a third similarity: the issues involved are momentous. Brexit reversed the direction of mainstream British policy which had prevailed for 60 years. Britain has still hardly begun to work out what this will mean. The rise of the Rassemblement National (RN) seems to undermine the moral basis, if not the constitution, of the Fifth Republic. Although it is hard to discern a fully defined policy which marks such a break, there is widespread unease – for example about possible new rules restricting the rights of dual nationals.
RN, at least in its Vichyite historical origins, represents those who reject the existing post-war order of things. So if it were to win power, people might feel there had been a revolution. That feeling can only increase because of Macron’s talk of “civil war”.
Looking at French politics, it is difficult not to share a little of the French political class’s exasperation with their compatriots. Why is it, for example, that the French, pretty much alone in Europe, so fiercely resist any attempt to raise the state pension age to reflect the fact that most of us live much longer nowadays? And why is rioting the most common French reaction to even mildly controversial French government policies? French voters seem even less ready than British ones to accept the idea that their governments may not have limitless amounts of their money to give them whatever they want.
Still, that is a weak argument. In a democracy, there is a sense in which the voters are always right: if they truly, deeply – even madly – do not like something, politicians and bureaucrats should not force them to accept it.
In both Britain and France, we do seem to be close to the point at which people are starting to reject the lawful authorities. Immigration is the sharpest example of the problem. Perhaps the only difference between the two countries is that our parliamentary system can be more flexible, and therefore more long-lived, than their presidential one.
Although we have had a lousy election campaign, and may well get a lousy result, I find this some comfort.
Pope Francis’s not so private thoughts
President Biden has given the world a masterclass in why it can be difficult to hold a major executive position over the age of 80, I feel it would be interesting to know how Pope Francis, now 87, would manage in a similar situation.
He seems a lot more energetic and articulate than Mr Biden, but he does frequently exercise the privilege of the old of saying privately, but with startling frankness, whatever he happens to be thinking. I would love to see this reach a larger audience.