Right after his election, he had an absolute
Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2025 5:59 am
ut in fact, in the Fifth Republic, and the five-year term in 2002 came for that, since previously we had the presidential election for 7 years and the deputies elected for 5 years. So, there was in fact a gap between the legislative elections and the presidential elections. So, the presidents, and this happened under Mitterrand, could win the presidential election, lose the legislative election and, therefore, lose their majority in the National Assembly, which, for 2 years in fact, tended to complicate things. That is why in 2002, Jacques Chirac put in place the five-year term, where we had the President of the Republic elected for 5 years, the deputies elected for 5 years, and we put the legislative election just after the presidential election, because people said to themselves "well, we have a president from such and such a party, we are going to elect a National Assembly from the same party". That is basically what was hidden behind it.
And for a long time, we had major political alternations under this model with a President of the Republic and a government that was part of the same... or that had the same political tendency as the National Assembly, as the deputies, and we had an alternation between the right and the left. The right in France is the conservatives, and the left, the socialists basically. And so, we had alternations. 1959-1981 the right, 1981-1995 the left, 1995-2012 the right, 2012-2017 the left. We had this alternation right-left, left-right.
And in 2017, Emmanuel Macron, who came out of nowhere, who no one knew, almost a few years before, he was elected against Marine Le Pen. In general, when Marine Le Pen, who is a candidate of the National Rally, when she reaches the final in the second round, there is what is called "a republican front" and everyone actually calls to vote against her. So, we do not vote for a candidate but against a candidate. And in France, we have a system for the presidential election that is really direct, that is to say we have a first round between a certain number of candidates, about ten candidates. Those who have the most votes, the two candidates in fact who gather the most votes in the first round are qualified for the second round, and there, everyone votes by choosing one or the other. Which leaves little chance for a candidate of the National Rally for example to come out on top or at least that was the case until now.
And Emmanuel Macron, when he arrived in 2017, he proposed a break with the traditional parties. He is not right-wing, he is not left-wing, he is, as he says, between the two, in the center. And he created his party, at the time it was En Marche. En which begins with an E like Emmanuel, and Marche which begins with an M like Macron. So, his party was his initials. So, it was more of a party where people joined and we brought out a personality, it was a personality who created a party ultimately.
And he brought a lot of hope, because he said: "we are neither right nor left, we are in the center. We are the new world, we are young." Emmanuel Macron was 40 when he was elected, Hollande was 58, Sarkozy 52, and their two predecessors were over 60. So, he was young, he had a young team, he said "we are the new world, we are the Start-Up Nation." So, he used anglicisms. He is also one of the only presidents of the Republic who has a good command of iran whatsapp number data English. He had a desire for change.
majority in the National Assembly. So that's an important point, because many people were saying "Emmanuel Macron is not known, he doesn't have a real party, so he won't have an absolute majority in the National Assembly, and that will be a problem." That didn't happen, he had an absolute majority. Basically, an absolute majority means that the MPs who have the large majority are on his side.
An absolute majority means more than half. If there are 500 MP positions, that's not it, it's a fictitious example, if you have an absolute majority, that means that you have at least 251 MPs, so that your MPs have the majority and can vote on everything in fact. A majority... having a majority that is not absolute would be having, I don't know, you have 200 MPs, someone has 150, someone else has 100. There, you have the majority, but you don't have an absolute majority. That means you can't decide yourself, all alone, to vote on a law.
But he had an absolute majority, so it was quite easy. They passed a certain number of reforms. Some reforms of Macron's first five-year term were rather unpopular, in particular, he reduced taxation of the very very wealthy in France. And as a result, he was perceived by the working classes as favoring the elites in fact. We can combine that with language problems. He is a very frank person. Once, he said to someone in the street: "But if you want work or if you want work, just cross the road and I will find you some". Implied, those who do not work are lazy. Which is something a President of the Republic should not say in fact. He spoke by describing certain people as people who are nothing. So, these are very heavy words in the mouth of a President of the Republic, which created distrust. And even much later, he said that he wanted to annoy the unvaccinated. So, those who did not get vaccinated against Covid, he wanted to annoy them.
I am not judging the substance here, whether I agree with what he says or not, but the form. A President of the Republic should have more dignity and should not express himself like that, in my opinion.
And for a long time, we had major political alternations under this model with a President of the Republic and a government that was part of the same... or that had the same political tendency as the National Assembly, as the deputies, and we had an alternation between the right and the left. The right in France is the conservatives, and the left, the socialists basically. And so, we had alternations. 1959-1981 the right, 1981-1995 the left, 1995-2012 the right, 2012-2017 the left. We had this alternation right-left, left-right.
And in 2017, Emmanuel Macron, who came out of nowhere, who no one knew, almost a few years before, he was elected against Marine Le Pen. In general, when Marine Le Pen, who is a candidate of the National Rally, when she reaches the final in the second round, there is what is called "a republican front" and everyone actually calls to vote against her. So, we do not vote for a candidate but against a candidate. And in France, we have a system for the presidential election that is really direct, that is to say we have a first round between a certain number of candidates, about ten candidates. Those who have the most votes, the two candidates in fact who gather the most votes in the first round are qualified for the second round, and there, everyone votes by choosing one or the other. Which leaves little chance for a candidate of the National Rally for example to come out on top or at least that was the case until now.
And Emmanuel Macron, when he arrived in 2017, he proposed a break with the traditional parties. He is not right-wing, he is not left-wing, he is, as he says, between the two, in the center. And he created his party, at the time it was En Marche. En which begins with an E like Emmanuel, and Marche which begins with an M like Macron. So, his party was his initials. So, it was more of a party where people joined and we brought out a personality, it was a personality who created a party ultimately.
And he brought a lot of hope, because he said: "we are neither right nor left, we are in the center. We are the new world, we are young." Emmanuel Macron was 40 when he was elected, Hollande was 58, Sarkozy 52, and their two predecessors were over 60. So, he was young, he had a young team, he said "we are the new world, we are the Start-Up Nation." So, he used anglicisms. He is also one of the only presidents of the Republic who has a good command of iran whatsapp number data English. He had a desire for change.
majority in the National Assembly. So that's an important point, because many people were saying "Emmanuel Macron is not known, he doesn't have a real party, so he won't have an absolute majority in the National Assembly, and that will be a problem." That didn't happen, he had an absolute majority. Basically, an absolute majority means that the MPs who have the large majority are on his side.
An absolute majority means more than half. If there are 500 MP positions, that's not it, it's a fictitious example, if you have an absolute majority, that means that you have at least 251 MPs, so that your MPs have the majority and can vote on everything in fact. A majority... having a majority that is not absolute would be having, I don't know, you have 200 MPs, someone has 150, someone else has 100. There, you have the majority, but you don't have an absolute majority. That means you can't decide yourself, all alone, to vote on a law.
But he had an absolute majority, so it was quite easy. They passed a certain number of reforms. Some reforms of Macron's first five-year term were rather unpopular, in particular, he reduced taxation of the very very wealthy in France. And as a result, he was perceived by the working classes as favoring the elites in fact. We can combine that with language problems. He is a very frank person. Once, he said to someone in the street: "But if you want work or if you want work, just cross the road and I will find you some". Implied, those who do not work are lazy. Which is something a President of the Republic should not say in fact. He spoke by describing certain people as people who are nothing. So, these are very heavy words in the mouth of a President of the Republic, which created distrust. And even much later, he said that he wanted to annoy the unvaccinated. So, those who did not get vaccinated against Covid, he wanted to annoy them.
I am not judging the substance here, whether I agree with what he says or not, but the form. A President of the Republic should have more dignity and should not express himself like that, in my opinion.