The plot to stop Marine Le Pen’s National Rally

This week, France has gone from surprise to confusion and panic as Sunday’s second round of voting approaches. The self-righteous, center-left weekly New Obs“The cover says it all. Black letters on a red background warn menacingly: “Let’s avoid the worst”; “The National Rally on the brink of power.” However, the National Rally is a legitimate and officially recognized party. France is not staring into the abyss. But if we were to indulge in such dark daydreams, what would be the worst post-election scenarios for France? Let’s start gently.

If the National Rally fails to form a government on Monday, Macron’s troops are already preparing a broad coalition that would stretch from the Republican right to the left, but exclude the National Rally and the radical left party La France Insoumise. The policies would necessarily have to include costly promises from the left’s manifesto that are sure to worsen France’s atrocious public finances and spook the markets.

The 5th^th The Republican Constitution was not designed for a coalition culture, nor does it have one, unlike continental Europe. Given the large number of National Rally and France Insoumise deputies who will be elected after July 7, the shaky Macronist coalition would be perpetually vulnerable to votes of no confidence. If Macron were to keep it afloat, he could pass a law to change the electoral system in favor of proportional representation. Given the National Rally’s record turnout of 33%, this would prevent an absolute National Rally majority as soon as new elections could be held from July 8, 2025.

But if this coalition were to collapse, France would sink into chronic instability and political deadlock for a year, until the president is able to dissolve it again. The impact on financial markets would be comparable to that of Liz Truss.

THE The Opinion Le Figaro newspaper wrote this week that the French government, headed by the president, was considering calling an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday, in the event of a National Rally victory. The aim would be for the president to use his constitutional privilege to appoint senior civil servants, police officers, and military personnel, and thus ensure the countersignature of his last prime minister. Marine Le Pen has called this measure an “administrative coup d’état.” It would not fail to increase tensions with the new government.

The feverish atmosphere throughout the country has prompted the interior minister to mobilize 30,000 police officers across France starting Sunday. Radical left politicians are already talking about “resistance” if the National Rally forms a government. Trade unions have pledged to continue the fight. Professional far-left rioters will cause destruction and violence at public demonstrations and then blame a police force controlled by the National Rally. The greatest fear is suburbs participation.

If French institutions were threatened, the president could invoke Article 16. One of the most powerful instruments in the Constitution, it grants him emergency powers so far-reaching that one constitutional historian has described them as as absolutist as those of Louis XIV.

The worst of all scenarios would be a revolution or RebellionIt is no secret that Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a staunch supporter of Robespierre, the ruthless leader of the French Revolution, favors radicalizing French politics to bring about upheaval. The French revolutions were, after all, a laboratory for Karl Marx and a source of inspiration for his writings on class struggle.

The prospect of a disgruntled army staging a revolt is never far from revolution. RebellionJust two years ago, retired and active senior officers issued a collective letter warning of the state of France and the fact that they would be the last resort if things went wrong. RebellionThe events that have shaped French politics since the Revolution do not only belong to the distant past with Napoleon I in 1799 or Napoleon III in 1852. In 1958, at the height of the Algerian War, during the impasse 4^th Republic, the so-called “coup of May 13” shook France. Army officers took control of Algeria – then as much a part of France as Northern Ireland is to the United Kingdom – and paratroopers took Corsica, threatening to take Paris. Their goal was to force the 4^th The President of the Republic will accept the return of General de Gaulle with the power to draft a new constitution on the 5th^th Republic. But the 5th was not either^th immunized. In 1961, the generals organized another cut in Algeria. And at the height of the riots and strikes of 1968, General de Gaulle secretly disappeared into Germany to obtain the support of the commander of the French army on the Rhine.

France is a modern and mature democracy. The National Rally should be able to come to power with complete legitimacy if the 10.6 million French voters in the first round confirm their choice on Sunday. The use of subterfuge to deny the popular will is a greater danger.