France’s future looks far from certain

The much loved and quintessentially French singer, Françoise Hardy, born in 1944, died last night. French certainties are disappearing. The Fifth Republican regime could be next. President Macron’s stunning decision on Sunday night to dissolve the National Assembly in the wake of the remarkable victory of the Rassemblement National (RN) in the European elections is likely to turn a political crisis into a crisis of regime. 

Following Macron’s 2022 re-election, devoid of a working majority, France entered a slow-building crisis. The fall-out continues to contaminate the political life of the country. After the agonising demise of the Socialist party, yesterday saw the implosion of the Republican party, the Gaullists who gave France the hitherto stable institutions of the Fifth Republic and four presidents. Its leader, Eric Ciotti, broke the taboo of no collusion with the ‘far right’, by sealing an agreement with the RN, which has enraged the party’s hierarchy, though not grass roots members.