How did the French elections descend into violence and riots? - Bill Carmichael

Most importantly the transfer of power was peaceful, and the losers, although bitterly disappointed, bowed to the will of the people as expressed via the ballot box. The rest of us shrugged our shoulders and got on with life. No angry demonstrations, no riots, no senseless violence. This speaks volumes about the strength and stability of our democracy.

The comparison with France could not be starker. Riot police were already on high alert last Sunday when the results of elections to the national assembly were expected. The right wing party, National Rally (RN), was widely expected to win, and some predicted it could achieve an overall majority. If that happened violence was expected.

In the event, as a result of tactical voting, RN was pushed into third place behind a left wing coalition called the New Popular Front, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, the Ensemble alliance. The result is that no party or faction has an overall majority in the assembly.

And guess what? Left wingers still rioted even though they had won, damaging property, setting street trees and vehicles alight, and smashing up bus shelters in Paris, Nantes and Lyon.

Macron is the architect of this mess. He called the national assembly elections after suffering a humiliating defeat to RN in the elections to the European Parliament last month, when the right wing party garnered almost a third of the total vote.

But Macron didn’t have to do this, and it now appears to be little more than a damaging fit of pique. No one cares about the European Parliament, and nobody takes much notice of it. Although it is the only part of the giant EU bureaucracy with any democratic credibility, it has no power.

For example, the European Parliament cannot even initiate its own legislation, which is the defining characteristic of parliaments across the world. All power lies with the unelected and unaccountable European Commission.

Macron could have simply ignored the European Parliament elections, and got on with governing France. Instead he has unnecessarily plunged his country into chaos and crisis. He is now a lame duck with little chance of pushing through the reforms he says are necessary.

The New Popular Front, which was hastily cobbled together to defeat the RN, contains communists, Greens, and various extreme left Trotskyist factions that all hate each other almost as much as they hate Macron.

It includes a far left demagogue. Jean-Luc Melenchon, who makes Jeremy Corbyn look like a sensible centrist. He wants income taxes of 90 per cent, open borders, France to pull out of Nato, is pro-Putin and China, and virulently anti-Israel (naturellement).

Macron’s best hope is that his party can form some kind of coalition with the more moderate socialists and Greens, but this is very far from guaranteed. Any such alliance will be inherently unstable and liable to collapse. One thing that is pretty certain is that the next few months will be marked by paralysis and deadlock.

Meanwhile the RN can play the long game because it has the wind at its back. Two years ago it had seven MPs. Today it has more than 140, and it was backed by more than 10 million people last weekend giving it around a third of the votes cast.

RN President, Jordan Bardella, can afford to sit back and watch as the various parties of the centre and the left bicker and tear themselves apart, and the French people will take note and act accordingly.

With the seemingly inexorable rise of the right, all eyes will turn to the presidential elections in April 2027. If the left go on a rioting spree when they win, what on earth will happen if, or rather when, they lose?