By dissolving Parliament following the European elections on June 9 French President Macron surprised everyone, especially within the political forces of the state apparatus, starting with his own supporters. Above all, he made a political error. Nothing forced him to dissolve the government. A poor political strategist, his calculation was certainly not that the left-wing parties, divided between “moderate” socialists and “radical” France insoumise, would immediately unite to present single candidates in all electoral districts. However, it could not be otherwise, without risking the almost complete disappearance of left-wing elected deputies as a result of the majority electoral system – contrary to the proportional system. [1]

Macron’s hope was undoubtedly to get left-wing voters to vote for his party in the second round, once the left candidates were defeated, in the face of the danger from the far-right, and thus succeed in winning an absolute majority – which he did not have – in parliament. However, beyond his petty calculation, the risk was that the first and especially the second round of the elections would see a fall in voter turnout in a situation of anger and social despair. Such a situation presented a whole series of uncertainties, both for the “legitimacy” and authority of the government to come, and in the event of a possible working-class struggles. The forces of the left would then have been severely weakened to control it.

By uniting on the evening of the dissolution in a “New Popular Front” and presenting a left-wing program – abolition of pension reform, wage increases, etc. – the French left helped limit the consequences of Macron’s stupid act. In so doing, and by focusing on the danger of a far-right majority from Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement national and calling for a “Republican Front”, voter turnout rose from 47% in 2022 to 67%! In the absence of a united left, it is highly likely that the far-right party would have won an absolute majority and formed the government. This would have risked the further weakening of the realization of French capitalism’s present imperialist, anti-worker policy orientations in the current historical period. Above all, it would also have further cleared the social terrain.

As of the time of writing, Macron ended up appointing a right-wing prime minister, whose party Les Républicains only got 6.5% of the vote in the first round and only because Le Pen’s Rassemblement national [RN] hinted that it might not censure him in the national assembly from day one. The bourgeoisie has certainly entered a period of relative governmental instability. What is more, its international capacity and credibility have been weakened, whereas in recent months, under Macron’s impetus, it had managed to regain a little space and initiative in the face of the war in Ukraine and vis-à-vis its European rivals.

However, what we are presented with as a political crisis of the French bourgeoisie is, at best, a political difficulty in the face of a personnel that is now proving inadequate. From the point of view of the proletariat, to speak of a political crisis would mean that the proletariat is a direct actor in the situation, which is far from being the case. Finally, given that a large part of the working class votes RN, the expression of this crisis would be the irresistible rise of the vote for it and the danger of “populism”. However, a significant part of the working class has always voted for the “hard” right since the Second World War. In the 1960s, the Gaullist party, like the Republican party in the USA, won around 30% of the working-class votes. That, in the absence of massive struggles and proletarian, i.e. revolutionary, perspectives, a third of the least “conscious” proletarian individuals, isolated and hopeless, inclined to fall for the racist and anti-immigrant scapegoat politics, vote for a right-wing party with a discourse that is both “firm” and partly left-wing – the RN proclaiming that it will cancel the pension reform if it comes to power – can come as no surprise. It also changes nothing about the stakes and prospects of class struggle per se, except that anti-Le Pen polarization diverts the proletariat from the terrain of collective struggle onto bourgeois political terrain.

We should not be surprised that, in the current historical situation, capital’s contradictions are exploding at every level, including the political. Still less should we be led to believe that the power of the bourgeoisie and capital has been weakened, or is even in crisis. It is not a question of denying contradictions are arising. The question is whether or not the bourgeoisie can master these contradictions and “surf” on them.

Macron has just revealed himself as a pitiful surfer. Yet, the French bourgeoisie as a whole is far from having lost control of the situation. This is borne out by the level of voter turnout. Moreover, it is confirmed by the occupation of the “social” terrain and streets by the left, leftists and trade unions, if only by organizing demonstrations to “enforce the election result and demand a left-wing government.” France insoumise’s obvious refusal to allow the “united” left to accede to the government can also be explained by the need to maintain a left-wing force, more or less “radical”, that can occupy the social terrain, the streets, working-class struggles. This is occurring at a time when the new Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, is announcing a policy of drastic austerity to reduce the country’s now abysmal deficit and debt. Without touching the 40% increase in the defense budget, of course.

Whatever the longevity of the new government – still to come at the time of writing – the new political configuration ensures the French bourgeoisie the stability of its imperialist and national policies, even if they have been weakened somewhat by Macron’s ill-fated initiative. The proletarians should make no mistake about it: the anti-worker set-up that plays on false oppositions – Le Pen-anti-Le Pen, right-left, moderate left-radical left, leftist – remains in place. Greater attacks on workers’ living and working conditions are to come, whatever is the government. Whether a left, a center, a right or “populist” government, it will intend to make them pay the bill of the defense of French capitalism and its preparation to war.