Will Emmanuel Macron be a president restricted in his powers?

The re-election of Emmanuel Macron for a new five-year term is not the end of his fight. No sooner has he rejoiced in his re-election than the president must face a new crucial challenge for his governance which will allow him to lead easily as in 2017 or with cohabitation. Explanations with Mustapha Tossa, journalist and political scientist based in Paris.

“Badly elected” for some of his political enemies, Emmanuel Macron, who on Sunday became the first French president since Jacques Chirac to be elected for two consecutive terms, did not however appeal to all French people.

Coming in first against his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen, he came up against a large number of abstentions and blank votes in addition to a large number of French people who voted for the re-election of the president only. to block the National Rally project.

Indeed, they were 2.2 million voters to have voted with a blank or invalid ballot. Added to them, 13.6 million abstainers representing 28% of the electorate (for abstainers).

This second round of the presidential election in France demonstrated that there were therefore not simply 2 camps, but 3 and that of the abstainers, if it had been counted, would have been ranked ahead of Marine Le Pen.

Aware of this trend, the French head of state mentioned it in his speech just after the announcement of the results.

“I know that many of our compatriots voted for me today, not to support the ideas that I hold but to block those of the extreme right,” declared the president. “This vote binds me for the years to come, I am the guardian of their sense of duty,” he added.

For Mustapha Tossa, Emmanuel Macron has indisputably succeeded in defeating the far right. “However, the result of the second round shows an extremely present and powerful extreme right within French society, which in one way or another will complicate the task of Emmanuel Macron in his second term. He will have to manage these fractures, these frustrations and this internal tension which will not stop with the presidential elections and will certainly be expressed in the legislative elections, ”said Mustapha Tossa, in a statement to MoroccoLatestNews FR.

Despite Emmanuel Macron’s resounding victory over Marine Le Pen, the French president “is promised a 3rd round which promises to be extremely effervescent, sulphurous, because we will have to go into the field, snatch a comfortable parliamentary majority which will will make it possible to form a homogeneous government and to be able to govern in peace,” he added.

Indeed, the legislative elections scheduled for June will once again give the French people the opportunity to choose their decision-makers. It will thus be a question for a large section of the population to vote for the political party which seems to them the most able to sit in the National Assembly, the French Parliament.

“The risk for Emmanuel Macron is that all the people who were forced to vote for him in order to block Marine le Pen, and who were not convinced that he deserved a second term, all of them will take advantage of the legislative elections to send a message of sanction, of revenge to show their bitterness with regard to Macron’s governance and therefore they risk not investing those close to the president, ”said Mr. Tossa.

According to the televised interventions of Eric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen or even Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the very evening of the presidential election, Mr. Macron will not be able to rest on his laurels and will have to reckon with them.

Moreover, the indications of the left-wing leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) for the second round, had not called for a vote for the re-election of the president, but only to give “no vote to Madame Le Pen”.

In June, if the French give substantial scores to political parties other than La République en Marche (LREM), the presidential party, this new deal would be “something that will be terrible for Emmanuel Macron, especially if he does not arrive not to snatch a comfortable parliamentary majority, ”said the political scientist.

And to continue: “He will be obliged to make alliances and coalitions, and this is an exercise to which Emmanuel Macron is not used. So it’s very new for him and he will have to deal with other political forces with other political sensitivities to be able to govern an ungovernable France because of the depths of the problems that await him, in particular economic, social or identity problems. All these fractures there, Emmanuel Macron will have to manage them ”.