French elections and austerity economics

French parliamentary elections took place on Sunday. François Hollande won the Presidency five years ago and his Socialists won a majority in Parliament by campaigning against Merkel's austerity policies. Then they got into office and spent five years trying to implement Merkel's austerity policies. The Socialists came in fifth place on Sunday. According to the estimates in Spiegel Online, they could wind up losing 88% of their parliamentary seats.

President Macron's conservative party that was formed a year ago, La République en marche (LREM) won first place. And it looks like Macron will have a solid majority of parliamentary seats, even without a coalition with the conservative Gaullist Republican Party, which came in a distant second place. (So mächtig wird En Marche Spiegel Online 12.06.2017)

BBC News reports (French election: How dominant will Macron party be? 06/122017):

With 32.32% of the vote, even if it was on a low turnout, LREM crushed its rivals on both the right and left.

Ahead in 400 constituencies out of the 577 that make up France's National Assembly, the party is heading for a convincing majority far higher than the 289 seats needed to control parliament. That does not even take into account the 100-odd seats where Mr Macron's centrist MoDem allies are in the lead.

His centrist alliance could control 415 to 455 seats after the second round on 18 June, experts predict. His first-round success is even more impressive than the first round of the presidential election, which he won with 24.1% of the vote.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s new, actually-left France Unbowed party came in fourth ahead of the socialists. This Guardianpiece by Angelique Chrisafis, Emmanuel Macron's party set for landslide in French parliamentary elections 06/11/2017, calls France Unbowed a "new hard-left movement." In Angela Merkel's EU, any party that advocates something like Richard Nixon's brand of Keynesian economics counts as "far left." The Socialists, though, came in fifth place and could wind up losing something like nine-tenths of their Parliament seats. (Stefan Simons, Der Durchmarche Spiegel Online 12.06.2017) This was a crushing defeat for the ruling party of the last five years.

The combined vote for France Unbowed (the English initials FU are kind of unfortunate) and the crushed austerian Socialist Party was bigger than that for the far-right National Front. That means that being identified with Trump and Putin has become a much bigger political liability in Europe in the last few months.

The BBC News report linked above explains some of Macron's proposals, which include the stock neoliberal budget cuts, pension reductions reduced work protections, cutting taxes for corporations.

Jakob Augstein (Jeremy Schulz oder Martin Macron? Spiegel Online 12.06.2017) says of Macron, "Er ist einfach ein Monsieur Merkel à la française. Und wie sozial dieser angebliche Sozialliberale seinen Landsleuten noch vorkommt, wenn er erst einmal mit ihnen fertig ist, das wird man sehen." ("He is simple a Monsieur Merkel à la française. And how social this alleged social-liberal will appear to his people if he gets the chance to do what he wants, we will see.")

Alex Main of the Center of Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) talks about Macron's challenges in France's New President Wins Parliament Vote, But Faces Problems Implementing Program The Real News 06/12/2017:

I don't have a good feeling about this: French election edition

French polls still seem to show a strong lead for the "centrist" Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. The Guardian reports Emmanuel Macron vows to be 'president for all of France' after first round win 04/24/2017:

Macron’s critics for a long time called him a “champagne bubble” that would burst. A former investment banker in a country where voters distrusted banks, he had been appointed as economy minister by François Hollande. He quickly became the most popular minister. He also served as a presidential adviser in the gilded anti-chambers of the Elysée palace – effectively the architect of Hollande’s pro-market, business-friendly reforms that so alienated voters on the left.

Macron’s presidential bid was a mass of contradictions, critics complained. He was a member of the elite top tier of the civil service, on friendly terms with business leaders and powerbrokers, yet vowed to fight the “system”.

But Macron is committed to the predominant EU neoliberal economic doctrine, aka, Herbert Hoover economics, Heinrich Brüning economics, Merkel-nomics, the Washington Consensus, the IMF/World Bank dogma.

So this is not a good things for workers and for the large majority of the people in France.

Yanis Varoufakis has endorsed Macron over Marine Le Pen, Why we support Macron in the second round Le Monde 05/02/2017. He makes his concerns clear. But he also shares a story of what he takes to be a serious attempt by Macron to help Greece resist the draconian economic measures forced onto them in 2015:

During my tenure as Greece’s finance minister in early 2015 Emmanuel revealed to me a side of him that few progressives have seen. While the troika of Greece’s lenders and the Berlin government were strangling our freshly elected left-wing government’s attempts to liberate Greece from its debt-bondage, Macron was the only minister of state in Europe that went out of his way to lend a helping hand. And he did so at a personal political cost. ...

By crushing the Greek Spring the troika did not only deal a blow to Greece but also to Europe’s integrity and soul. Emmanuel Macron was the only member of the establishment that tried to stop it. I feel it is my obligation to ensure that French progressives, as they are about to enter (or not to enter) the polling station in the second round of France’s Presidential election, make their choice fully aware for this.

For my part, my promise to Emmanuel is this: I shall mobilise fully to help you beat Le Pen with the same strength that I shall be joining the next Nuit Debout to oppose your government when, and if, you, as President, attempt to continue with your dead-end, already-failed neoliberalism.

Luis Martín describes the challenge for the left in the likely case that Macron becomes President in Open Democracy 05/01/2017:

When Emmanuel Macron made it to the second round of the French presidential election last month, banning Marine Le Pen from occupying the Élysée Palace for the present time, the EU breathed a sigh of relief with our European representatives and various heads of state echoing their euphoria. The threat to the Union had, once more, been averted. But sadly this is as myopic as Brussels can be.

Macron may very well prevent the Front National’s rise to power next Sunday, but by what margin and for how long? The epic demise of Macron’s former Socialist Party has left its electorate fractured among him, Benoît Hamon and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, so the young former Minister of Economy and maverick investment banker is doomed to endure an extremely weak presidency after the legislative race in June. This is particularly dangerous if there is no clear alternative in sight.