Paris sur Danube: Why French politics now looks distinctly eastern European
Abstract
The 2022 French legislative elections have left President Emmanuel Macron in a substantially weakened position. Jan Rovny writes that with the decline of mainstream parties, the rise of personalised movements, and the fragmentation of the left, French politics now bears a striking resemblance to the politics of eastern Europe.
The French 2022 legislative elections produced a national assembly without an absolute majority – a first in the history of the French Fifth Republic – while a broad left-wing alliance, and the radical right Rassemblement National were the main electoral beneficiaries. Given the rise of these political fringes, and the fragmentation of the assembly, journalists and pundits have decried France as ungovernable. What they have not noticed is that France has rather become a typical eastern European country.