What the National Rally means for France’s foreign policy

The electoral turmoil in France threatens its status as a world power. Friendly nations are despairing; rivals and enemies are gloating, even circling.

France is the world’s seventh-largest economic power, a prominent Nato member, a member of the UN Security Council and the EU’s leader on foreign and defence issues. It has the fifth largest strategic nuclear force and the fifth largest navy, a ‘tier one’ military and one of the highly effective ‘Nine Eyes’ intelligence services.

Last year France was the world’s second largest arms exporter. It controls the third largest global undersea cables network and has the second largest coastal economic area, whose confetti territories give it a global strategic toe-hold. Her ‘France-Afrique’ presence has shrunk under Emmanuel Macron, but the Francophonie commonwealth of nations secures UN votes. Strategic assets of this magnitude aren’t easily equalled.

Macron’s presidency has been woeful internationally, with its unpredictable and vainglorious posturing. But his most egregious decision was to dissolve the National Assembly last month. It may put France into a domestic fog for three years, risking exposing international vulnerabilities and threatening precious assets.

France’s executive functions smoothly when the prime minister and president are of the same political complexion. Only then are foreign and defence policy a presidential ‘reserved domain’. However, a determined National Rally government, led by Marine Le Pen, in ‘cohabitation’ with a hostile president, will limit an active international role.

This sends awkward messages to allies and delights adversaries. Only last week Le Pen insisted the president’s role as commander–in-chief of the armed forces was ‘honorific’, because in ‘cohabitation’ a National Rally prime minister would control the purse strings. She concluded President Macron would be unable to send troops to Ukraine without the premier’s agreement. ‘Cohabitation’ requires joint signatures on various international issues; deadlock looms.