Poll shows Hollande is free from the compromise of having to share power, writes RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
IT WAS no landslide, but it was enough to tighten François Hollande’s grip on power and complete the left’s clean sweep of France’s political institutions.
Going into yesterday’s parliamentary elections, the left controlled the presidency, the senate, nearly all French regions, major cities and a majority of départements. To that list it has now added one of the most coveted prizes of all, the National Assembly. It will have a majority in the lower house for the first time since 1993.
The Socialist Party’s (PS) public celebrations will be studiously restrained – the economic crisis and the morose public mood will assure that much – but, in private, the party will be jubilant. The worst-case scenario, from its perspective, was a right-wing victory that would have forced Hollande to “cohabit” with a conservative government – an arrangement that would all but guarantee five years of stagnation and rancour. Even within the UMP party, hurting and demoralised after Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat last month, there were mixed feelings about the value of cohabitation at a time when the centre-right needs to rethink and regroup, and when France – facing a daunting list of problems at home and abroad – badly needs to project unity and a sense of purpose.
Not only has the PS avoided having to share power with its rivals on the right, its strong performance also frees the party from having to rely on smaller left-wing groups that could have made life awkward for the Élysée Palace. The magic number, the key to a majority, was 289 seats out of 577. The socialists won 320, according to early CSA projections. Hollande may not have the two-thirds majority he would have needed to pass constitutional changes but, for the first time since 1981, the Socialist Party has won a majority on its own in the assembly.
The result will make it easier for Hollande to implement his agenda. Impending votes on laws to balance the budget and ratify the EU fiscal treaty should be straightforward, and the make-up of the new parliament will give him greater freedom to act on his pledges to raise taxes and cut spending.
For the mainstream right, it was a heavy defeat. The UMP’s objective was to not fall below 220 seats, and it hoped for 250. Early projections suggest it will have 220, and former ministers Michèle Alliot-Marie and Claude Guéant were among the casualties. It could have been worse. The centre-right has lost control of the lower house after 10 years, but it will have a larger bloc in the assembly than the socialist opposition did over the past five years, giving its next leader – who is due to be chosen in November – a strong base to work from.
It was a good result for the far-right National Front. Despite projections showing its leader Marine Le Pen had failed to win a seat, the party will have seats in the lower house for the first time since 1997. Having won 13.6 per cent of the vote in the first round of the elections on June 10th – far higher than the 4 per cent the party won in 2007 – early projections last night said the party would win two or three seats, vindicating the “detoxification” strategy pursued by Marine Le Pen since she took over the leadership from her father, Jean-Marie, last year. A return of three seats won’t give the Front much influence in parliament, but it will provide the party with a useful national platform.
With little mystery about the outcome – opinion polls had consistently pointed to a win for the left – much of the interest in the days before the election centred on the fate of prominent figures battling for their seats.
Hollande had said any minister who lost yesterday would have to step down from cabinet. None did, and strong performances from senior figures such as prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, foreign minister Laurent Fabius and finance minister Pierre Moscovici will enhance their standing.
Of all the battles fought around France yesterday, none was watched more closely than the one in La Rochelle, where Ségolène Royal was fighting to retain her seat against a dissident socialist candidate.
Royal, Hollande’s former partner and the mother of his four children, was officially supported by the Socialist Party, but last week the president’s current partner, Valérie Trierweiler, posted a message of support on Twitter for Royal’s opponent.
The psychodrama has dominated coverage of the elections. For months, Royal made no secret of her hope of becoming the socialists’ leader in the lower house. Now, five years after losing the presidential run-off, she no longer even has a seat.