A tale of two elections
This week marks 10 years since I moved to Paris. I quickly fell in love with the place, and as I began to call it home, I became more and more invested in French politics. In 2021, this culminated in becoming a French citizen.
The initial trigger for my naturalisation came from UK politics. In 2016, after my British compatriots opted to leave the EU, I decided that once I met the residency requirements, I would apply for French nationality.
Like many people, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about politics on both sides of the Channel. Last month, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak called the general election the country had been waiting for. Last week, French president Emmanuel Macron called the legislative election nobody expected — and no one, except the far right and the president himself, really wanted.
As a dual national, this means I will vote three times in the space of a week: on 30 June and 7 July for the French National Assembly, and on 4 July for the British House of Commons. I love politics, and I usually enjoy elections. But while the British general election has me salivating, I’m deeply worried about the situation in France.
Sunak’s announcement last month came as a surprise, but it shocked no one: the law required parliament to be dissolved by the end of the year. Many of my fellow Britons are eager to remove Sunak’s Conservatives from government, putting an end to 14 years of cuts to public services, hostility to migrants, an obsession with nonsense culture war issues, and — above all — the sense, exacerbated by Boris Johnson’s Partygate and the disastrous premiership of Liz Truss, that the people at the top don’t really care about those they represent.
Macron’s dissolution of the National Assembly was a much bigger shock. He made the announcement after a historic victory for the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in the European Parliament elections, giving them a huge tailwind. The short campaign period — the first round will take place just three weeks after the announcement — has left everyone, including the president’s governing Renaissance party, in a panicked scramble.
Macron is unpopular, and is struggling to govern without an absolute majority in the Assembly. But there is a very real risk that, far from strengthening his position, he has opened the door to the far right. Since 2017, his political strategy has revolved around positioning himself as the only viable alternative to the RN. The problem is that in doing so, he’s also positioned the far right as his natural opposition, allowing them to hoover up the votes of many of those disillusioned by his time in office.
In the UK, polls predict a landslide victory for the Labour party. The Conservatives’ election campaign, passing from blunder to faux pas, is doing nothing to reduce this probability. There is a palpable sense that positive change is coming. Across the Channel, all bets are off. But what seems without doubt is that the RN’s position will be stronger after the election than before.
It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. In the UK, I’m feeling hopeful for the first time in my voting life. In France, I’m more fearful than ever. In the UK, things can only get better; in France, things might be about to get a lot worse.
