BY MARK TAC
Yesterday the French voted in the first round of the parliamentary elections unexpectedly called by Macron after his party’s dismal performance in the European Parliamentary elections.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) came out way ahead of all the other parties in those Europeans and polls were right to suggest the RN would achieve a majority in the parliamentary elections.
So, as night follows day, the mainstream media in France and in London are frantically warning what a disaster it will be if Le Pen’s RN achieve a majority. (See some of the links below my article).
Labelled as “far right”, “extreme right”, “hard right”, “populist”, the RN are clearly a bunch of absolute rotters who will upset the comfy status quo built up by the liberal left-wing elite over decades.
The reality is the RN is no longer as far right as it was.
Marine Le Pen politically defenestrated her father whose ideas were certainly way out on the right, and she has deliberately adopted plans designed to appeal to a wider voter base, hence her recent successes: 40% in the run off against Macron two years ago and these latest Europeans.
Why?
Because she dropped plans for France to leave the EU and the Euro and while she talks of curbing immigration, the reality now is that French troops and Gendarmes have been patrolling France’s borders for years, notably with Italy, to stop illegal crossings. She has turned her party into mainstream representing a large chunk of ordinary French voters.
Of course, like the Front National before it, the RN has socialist roots. Indeed, no one quite knows how socialist the RN might prove to be (not unlike UK’s Labour in that regard). RN objectives include reducing VAT/TVA to zero for essential (mostly food) goods and repealing Macron’s entirely reasonable raising of the retirement age to 64 yrs (Mitterrand reduced it to 60) yet they do not really explain how all this will be funded. They retain a few favourites among its France-for-the-French supporters, like banning the veil in public (France is a secular Republic) and controlling how much France is involved in Ukraine (remember how De Gaulle refused to join NATO).
For those with a bit of French, this link explains more.
RN successes have infuriated the French left which has formed a new grouping called The Front Populaire, a name which is supposed to evoke French reaction against the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. Led by Melenchon, a lifetime commie and regular speaker at Corbyn’s Labour Party Conferences, the new FP is a hotchpotch of Socialists, Greens and Commies which is (amazingly) now polling 28% behind the RN on 35%, and they have promised violence if the RN do well. No chance the Left might respect the wishes of the electorate.
Macron supporters form another group called, encouragingly, Ensemble but it trails with around 20%, and the little chap, presumably still piqued by failure at the Europeans, has been unremittingly critical about the RN. He has even suggested that if the RN obtain a majority of MPs in the new Assembly, a serious possibility which would authorise them to demand their man Bardella is made Prime Minister, then France herself would be under threat.
And that raises the question, is Macron prepping us to declare Article 16?
ARTICLE 16
• L’article 16 de la Constitution peut être déclenché en cas de menace grave et immédiate contre les institutions de la République et si le fonctionnement régulier des pouvoirs publics est interrompu.
• Le président de la République exerce alors les pouvoirs législatif et exécutif.
• L’article 16 a été utilisé du 23 avril au 29 septembre 1961, à la suite du putsch des généraux en Algérie.
This rather handy article, the big brother of Art 49.3 which I have mentioned before, would allow Macron to assume all executive and legal authority in France. i.e. take over as a dictator. And there is no time limit. Art 16 has only been used once, by General De Gaulle (who else?) when the French Foreign Legion threatened a coup d’etat in 1961. De Gaulle assumed total control from 23 April to 29 September 1961.
Of course, Macron’s staff have emphatically ruled out any such outcome, but is it so unlikely?
I am not so sure.
I bet they have discussed it.
Why?
Because in April 2017 between the first and second rounds of presidential elections when Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron were in the run-off, my wife and I were enjoying lunch in that wonderful Empire-style restaurant Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon. The chap on the table next door was obviously English and we fell into conversation. Brigadier Nick Nottingham (Royal Irish Fusiliers) was attached to a French Army HQ in Besancon, and, after we had exchanged backgrounds, he told us the HQ had received instructions to prepare for orders to impose martial law in the event that Le Pen won.
Now that would trigger some real excitement!
Mark Tac is a Brit living in France.
Useful Links:
Link 1
“Le Pen claims far right will win majority so that Macron ‘won’t have choice’ but to appoint her protégé as PM and he would make decisions on Ukraine support.”
Link 2
Germany couldn’t afford to bail France out even if it wanted to, but it doesn’t. Berlin has made clear that it will not let the European Central Bank print money to save its neighbour.
Link 3
Jean Luc Melenchon, old communist leader of the new Left group Le Front Populaire saying: “If the RN wins these elections, we will enter moral and legal resistance.” In other words, civil disobedience. i.e. violence and rioting.
Link 4
Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, called by all MSM “France’s hard-Right”, has said it will cut the EU’s budget – Brussels should be worried that this will trigger a far-reaching financial crisis.