Is Macron considering using France’s emergency powers?

Does Emmanuel Macron have one more joker to play? Perhaps. His petulant decision to dissolve the National Assembly has been difficult to understand. His political movement looks like it will come third behind the rightish Rassemblement National and the ultra-leftist New Popular Front, a coalition of trots, Antifa activists, and loopy greens.

Privately, the polling companies are confessing a lack of confidence in the numbers so far, which show Rassemblement leading, the left trailing in second and Macron’s party in third. We’re waiting for some more authoritative polls at the end of week. The pollsters are struggling to make sense of, in effect, 577 separate elections held across two rounds. But it’s a reasonable conjecture that when the polls close and the votes are counted in the second round on July 7, no party will succeed in winning an absolute majority and it could quickly get very dicey.

So what can Macron do next? He’s traded a fairly modest position with a relative majority in the assembly, for a likely untenable position in which his political foes are ascendant. His campaign hasn’t been brilliant. He’s insulted the trans mob by noting it shouldn’t be possible to change gender just by showing up at the town hall. ‘Can’t we lock Macron up until July 7?’ an MP from his liberal Renaissance party joked in a text message to a minister, leaked to Le Parisien.

It’s possible to see him ally with some of the less lunatic members of the New Popular Front, but doubtful that such a pact could form a stable government. Who would take this terrible job as Macron’s fifth prime minister? Only the most desperate. Even if the Rassemblement National becomes the largest party in the assembly, but without a majority, Bardella is a long way from being prime minister. He will refuse to form a cohabitation with Macron’s deputies and it is inconceivable that it could treat with any part of the New Popular Front.

All of this is a recipe for chaos in the National Assembly and possibly in the streets including violent demonstrations by the thwarted left, amidst the unprecedented security challenges of the Paris 2024 Olympics which is supposed to open on July 26 with a spectacular ceremony on the River Seine.

Such chaos might well, however, offer Macron a new option. Under Article 16 of the French constitution, if the administration is threatened, he may declare a state of emergency and seize essentially absolute power. Is this fanciful? Not according to my go-to constitutional law professor, Catherine Rouvier. 

She told me yesterday that Macron can unilaterally seize power, in circumstances calling into question the integrity of the territory or the interruption of the regular functioning of the public authorities. 

That the architect of such chaos will have been Macron himself is irrelevant. And it’s easy to see how after the election, with Antifa rioting and the world gathering for the Olympics, he might well be tempted.

Under Article 16, Macron could rule France like a dictator for two months. Beyond two months, the Constitutional Council decides whether or not the exceptional powers can be maintained. The council is stuffed with Macron allies.

There is one precedent for the invocation of Article 16, between 23 April and the 29 September 1961, following the putsch of generals in Algeria. A stream of leaks emerging from the Elysée in recent hours seems to confirm that Macron is taking this option seriously – with Europe 1 reporting that he has discussed using Article 16 with his relatives. Macron has denied these conversations took place. Surely, he wouldn’t dare try this manoeuvre, but you never know with a President who believes he is the incarnation of Jupiter.