The various center-to-left parties got together and decided that keeping the right-wing-loonies out of power was in everyone's best interest. They were endorsing other parties in areas where splitting the vote would have allowed the Right to win. It will be interesting to see how Macron navigates this alliance. Good reads on it here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c724nnn29keo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrlxn4ngdgo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51y4zev0x2o
MAGA Fumes Over France Election Results: 'They Cheated' loyalists to the convicted felon have lashed out at the shock results of the French parliamentary elections, saying the far right was "cheated" out of victory, comparing the election to the 2020 and upcoming 2024 U.S. elections.
From what I recall Macron was elected as an economic reformer who was going to reform France’s social welfare system. As such he’s faced severe protests from those on the left.
Not really. He's very solidly center right (by French standards). Now he was the Finance Minister in the last socialist government but he wasn't actually a member of the party at that point and took the job because the President and Prime Minister wanted a reformer to run the Finance portfolio. He did a lot of the dirty work for the Socialists as he was effectively pushing center right reforms and using legislative tricks to get them passed (since the Socialist Party officially opposed most of his reforms). Ultimately he had a falling out with the socialist leadership since he started pushing bills that simply couldn't pass anymore (as he was pushing more and more free market reforms) and that resulted in his leaving the government and forming En Marche. The thing with the 2017 election is that France was primed to vote for a center right president and prime minister. The socialists were really unpopular but the party leading the polls was actually the Republicans (who are the traditional center right party in France). But their presidential candidate got caught up in a series of scandals so Macron ended up getting the most votes in the first round (with Macron and his party winning control of the presidency and parliament in the second round). I'm pretty sure that if Francois Fillon doesn't have the patronage scandals, he (and the Republicans) actually end up winning in 2017 and Macron probably fades away over time. Macron's constituency is third way centrism with members of both the socialists and Republicans joining En Marche to support a center right pro-EU party. The Republicans typically have a lot of socially conservative policy positions (as they're the traditional right wing party) while En Marche is more progressive in that area. But on economic policy, there's a lot of overlap between the Republicans and En Marche. Both parties are generally in favor of liberalizing the French economy, reforming pensions, etc..
This is the point I was bringing up. Macron has pushed market reforms and reforms targeting France’s social benefits system. How will he work with the Left?
Working with these Islamist-loving communists is not less distasteful than it would be to work with Le Pen.
There's a lot of events that haven't played out yet. The President of France actually picks the prime minister (rather than the national assembly) so there's nothing preventing Macron from appointing a PM from his party (which he has done temporarily since he rejected the resignation of the previous PM). Appointing his own PM means that he can then appoint the council of ministers giving Macron's party full control of the French ministries. Like other parliamentary systems, the ministries themselves have significant power to implement policy so Macron in practice can preserve significant levels of power (no different than the power that the US president has via executive and administrative powers). However, parliament can also pass a vote of no confidence and force the resignation of the PM and all ministries so this can also fall apart. The last time we had a split in party between the president and national assembly was in the late 90s when the Socialists were the largest party while Jacques Chirac was president. In that case, Chirac appointed a Socialist PM (which led to the Socialists controlling the ministries). Chirac effectively sidelined himself as without the ministries the President's only powers are around foreign policy and defense. In the 90s you had the odd situation of the government ministries implementing left leaning policies and regulations with a Conservative president. So we'll see what happens. Macron has said that he's keeping the PM and ministers in place from the old government in order to preserve stability but no one knows how long this will last. We're really in uncharted waters with no clarity on how the government will work long term.
"Let's bring in a third she said. It's not competition she said. It will spice up our relationship.... she said cucking was just a fantasy she said. Now she takes her little Parisian with us on vacation. He sleeps in out bed while I sleep on the couch with her shitty dog that bites me. One day she will be sorry."
