A few days before the first round of early legislative elections, the climate is very tense in France, so much so that it is rare to find such an anxious atmosphere during an election since the start of the Fifth Republic.
Awkward silences at the coffee machine at work, shouting matches at family lunches on Sundays, attacks on personalities and sordid news items… Rarely has an election aroused so much tension in France. The President of the Republic even predicted a “civil war” if ever one of the main opposition parties wins these early legislative elections.
If we look at the timeline of the Ve Republic, the number of elections which have given rise to so many doubts, fears and therefore tensions, can in fact be counted on the fingers of one hand.
1958: real civil war and the beginnings of the Fifth Republic
The year 1958 is the first date that comes to mind when we talk about political upheaval and complicated elections. It begins under the IVe Republic, saw the birth of a civil war in May with the insurrections in Algiers, then ended with the vote for the Constitution of the Ve Republic in October and the presidential election in December.
The situation is obviously very tense in the country, but it calms down with the appointment of General de Gaulle as President of the Council in June 1958, whose challenge will be to write a new Constitution.“It calmed down over the months, especially with the referendum of the Fifth Republic, which was a real success”underlines the historian Michel Winock, specialist in the history of the French Republic.
“The unrest is not linked to the elections themselves”confirms Jean-Yves Camus, co-director of the Observatory of Political Radicalism at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. Indeed, the presidential election in December 1958 took place normally. Above all, it is the only presidential election which will take place by indirect universal suffrage, in a restricted college, with 80,000 electors.
1968: after May-68
“There is another period which is quite paroxysmal, that of 1968, after what we called the May Events”continues Jean-Yves Camus. After observing thousands of workers and students take to the streets, the President of the Republic Charles de Gaulle announced the dissolution of the National Assembly.
“He takes note of the May-68 crisis and he wishes to obtain an even larger majority in the face of what he considers to be the threat of subversion.”
Jean-Yves Camusat franceinfo
It is tempting to draw a parallel with the dissolution of the National Assembly pronounced by Emmanuel Macron on June 9, 2024, on the evening of the European elections. But there are several “notable differences” according to Jean-Yves Camus. Already “May 68 had put tens of thousands of people on the streets”Next “we are in a period where we have a Communist Party (PC) which oscillates between 23 and 25% of the votes, (…) a PC which is a transmission belt for the Soviet Communist Party, and an insurrectional situation which has mobilized the country all the same throughout the month of May 1968.”
Finally, another major difference, there was no uncertainty about the day after these elections. The presidential party largely won these legislative elections in June 1968 with 49.80% of the votes. A score that is difficult to imagine for the majority party today, in third position in voting intentions.
1981: Soviet tanks in Paris
In 1981, the presidential election was also on everyone’s minds, “because the stakes are enormous”, notes Jean-Yves Camus. For the first time since the Popular Front in 1936, the left is at the gates of power, François Mitterrand is the favorite in the polls.
Panic right where “a dramatization of the issues” is put in place, remembers Jean-Yves Camus who was at the time “a grassroots activist.” “The right promised us the arrival of Soviet tanks in France, the cutting of the country’s bankruptcy by the communist bloc, mass arrests and all sorts of nonsense. Very quickly, people realized that this was not the case. had not the slightest credibility.”
The legislative elections decided by François Mitterrand who has just set down his bags at the Élysée “were also muscular”recalls Jean-Yves Camus. This is still not comparable with the current situation, according to the co-director of the Observatory of Political Radicalities at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation:“IL There was no way that the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister are currently using, of posing the fight between extremism and democracy. François Mitterrand did not do that. He proposed a choice of society.”
2002: Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round
Another moment of tension in the history of the Ve République, April 21, 2002. Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the National Front, a far-right party, is qualified for the second round of the presidential election.
Very quickly numerous demonstrations against the extreme right were organized. “People were quite feverish, moved and extremely mobilized, in tension between the two rounds of 2002, but still with a sort of assurance that Jean-Marie Le Pen of Paris would not pass”reports Cécile Alduy, professor at Stanford University and associate researcher at Cevipof de Sciences-Po in Paris.
In fact, the National Front has no reserve of votes, “it was already huge to see him reach the second round”, confirms Jean-Yves Camus. On May 5, Jean-Marie Le Pen won 17.79% of the votes, compared to 16.86% of the votes seven days earlier, bringing together the votes of Bruno Mégret and Christine Boutin who failed in the first round.
2024: the National Rally at the gates of power
“Today, there is a completely different configuration, it is 35% for the RNcontinues Jean-Yves Camus. So the hypothesis of the arrival in government is much stronger today than it was” in 2002. For the first time in the history of the Ve République, a far-right party is favorite, at the top of the voting intentions, to be democratically elected by the French.
Another subject of tension, given the issues and the consequences for these early legislative elections, participation risks being higher than usual, and reinforces the uncertainty in this election.
“Uncertainty adds to the tensionunderlines Cécile Alduy, and also ceach deprived camp demonizes the others. So it created a sort of absolute antagonism between the camps.” which prevents us from imagining the latter subsequently forming a political coalition.
Another difference that makes the 2024 legislative elections a unique election in the history of the Fifth Republice Republic: when General de Gaulle in 1958 dissolved the National Assembly, it was because the use of elections was synonymous with pacification, maintains the historian Michel Winock. “Here, we find ourselves in the opposite case, since the elections risk creating chaos instead of social peace.”
However, other European countries have seen the extreme right come to power or have experienced very complicated legislative elections to manage, and have not fallen into “chaos”. But “In France, there is no culture of coalition”points out Michel Winock, who has doubts about fruitful political alliances after these legislative elections.