The French president announced snap elections. The result could reduce his power in world affairs

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron may wake up, if he slept at all, with his arms cut off on Monday morning.

High-stakes second round of legislative elections on Sunday will almost certainly affect the influence of the French leader in the areas of defense and foreign affairs. This could diminish his role as an energetic and influential figure in European and world affairs and as one of Ukraine's main supporters in the war against Russiasay retired French military officers and analysts of France's defense and foreign policy.

After the centrist president's bloc finished a distant third, behind the surging far-right, last weekend first round of voting for a new parliament, one of the only certainties ahead of Sunday's decisive second round is that Macron himself cannot emerge stronger.

With many of its candidates already out of the race, Macron's camp cannot secure the absolute majority that gave him great room to maneuver in his first term as president from 2017. It is also likely to fall short of 245 seats which he won after his re-election in 2022. This made it the largest single group, although it saw a clear majority in the outgoing National Assembly, which Macron dissolved on June 9, triggering the snap election after the far-right gave his alliance a painful defeat in the French vote for the European Parliament. .

That leaves two results that are most likely to come out Sunday night into Monday after the official results come in.

In one scenario, France could end up with a fragmented parliament and a prime minister too weak to seriously undermine Macron's constitutionally guaranteed role as head of the armed forces and, more broadly, unable or unwilling to challenge mostly his defense and foreign policy powers. However, even in this best-case scenario for Macron, France risks becoming inward-looking, focused more on its polarized and volatile domestic politics than the country and its military activities in the world.

In a second, worst-case scenario for Macron, the far right could secure a landmark victory on Sunday that puts the president with Jordan Bardella as prime minister in a difficult and possibly contentious power-sharing deal. 28-year-old Bardella is protected by Marine Le Pen, who leads the far-right Rally National party, with Bardella as its president. Le Pen and Bardella have made it clear that, in power, they would seek to rein in Macron and exercise defensive, decision-making in European and foreign affairs.

The French constitution gives only limited answers to how different scenarios might play out. In large part, this may depend on the personalities of those involved and their ability to compromise, French analysts say.

Although the constitution states that the president is the commander-in-chief, it also states that the prime minister is responsible for national defense.

During the campaign, Bardella laid out what he said would be “my red lines about Ukraine if he ends up sharing power with Macron: No more French shipments of long-range weaponry that Ukraine can use to hit targets in Russia and not send troops, a script that Macron circulated this year. Bardella said he does not want nuclear-armed France to be drawn into a direct confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. His party has historically it has been close to Russia and Le Pen cultivated ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin for many years and supported Russia's illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Ukraine in 2014.

Who would have the final say in potential arguments over long-range weapons for Kiev is actually a tricky one, says François Heisbourg, a French defense and security analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The president can probably do it if he wants to, but the prime minister can also declare that he can prevent the president from doing it, he says. It can turn into a deadlock.

If they disagree, they can actually stop each other from doing anything.

Power-sharing is not new to France. But on previous occasions, the president and prime minister were not as politically opposed as Macron and Bardella.

No one has yet attempted to test these respective powers to their ultimate conclusion. This is completely uncharted territory, says Heisbourg.

On military matters, Le Pen has already delivered a warning shot, calling Macron's role as commander-in-chief an honorary title for the president, as he is the prime minister who holds the purse strings.” Macron responded: What arrogance!

Retired French Vice Adm. Michel Olhagaray, a former director of France's Center for Advanced Military Studies, is concerned that what he describes as constitutional blurring of shared military responsibilities could ripple through the ranks of the armed forces. of the country.

Conflicting separation of powers can be extremely painful for armies to know who the armies will obey. Very painful, very difficult, he says.

In any case, the president of the republic can no longer take personal initiatives, such as starting a (military) operation, etc., because this requires an understanding with the prime minister”.

Because the French military operates across the globe, with forces deployed on the eastern flank of the NATO alliance, in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, changes in its stance from a power-sharing government will certainly are reviewed by the international network of France. allies and partners.

Everyone will ask, but what is going on? How will this evolve? What will be done with France? Will France keep its commitments? says Olhagaray.

But analysts say France's nuclear forces should not be affected. The president maintains the nuclear codes, not least to ensure that the arsenal remains credible as a deterrent, making sure that potential enemies understand that every decision to strike is not made by committee.

If no clear majority for a single bloc emerges from Sunday's vote, lawmakers may have to do something that is not a tradition in France: form a coalition government. Because the prime minister in charge will need broad consensus in parliament to prevent the government from falling, that person is more likely to be a weakened junior power-sharing partner with Macron.

The president will have much more control, says retired general Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France's military mission to the United Nations.

In a coalition government, building consensus on difficult foreign policy issues, such as a large increase in aid to Ukraine, can take time, and divisive issues can be put on the back burner.

The room for maneuver would narrow, says Fredric Charillon, professor of political science at Paris City University.

In France, we're more used to this sort of presidential system of monarchical foreign policy, you know, when the president says, I'll do this, I'll do that.

But in the power-sharing deal with a new prime minister now awaiting Macron, it can't work that way.