 I graduated with a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics in 1991 and of course he has published hugely abroad and here. He is the editor of the journal French Politics and he is the review editor for the journal Government and Opposition. He is also the lead co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of French Politics, which I didn't know existed to this day and is it obtainable? It is. Oh yeah, it was 2016, so it's very recent. Here suffice it to say that he has published extensively on political leadership and French politics and by God what a situation we now have in France after the momentous events of this past few years, so the question is what happens now and where do those 57% will go or what do they do more precisely? So it's not over yet, but what has happened so far to my mind certainly as a fervent European is very good, very good for Europe, very good for France and very good for us hopefully. So anyway, without further ado, Robert Henze. Thank you. So listen, thank you for the invitation. I'm delighted to be here, delighted just to be here, but also especially delighted to be here talking about France. So we have a limited amount of time and hopefully we can turn to the questions. So I mean, you all know the results, so I'm not going to really present the results to you. That's not what I'm here to do. I'm going to be a little bit speculative, so I'm talking about the effect of the election basically on the French party system and trying to sort of draw up some scenarios as to where that party system might go in the future. So it is based on the election, but it's forward looking. So I think we know, despite what some people were worried about, that we just know that honeymoon elections, so legislative elections that follow presidential elections, they generate presidential majorities. This is something we know comparatively not just in France, but in France, I mean if you take the October 62 referendum, not a presidential election, but sort of a de facto referendum on the presidency, which is exactly how Degas used to hold his referendums, and then the result of that referendum and then the November legislative, so that was a sort of a honeymoon legislative election. 1974, when Shizka didn't dissolve, and when I think now we all think he probably should have done, that's almost like the confirmation by a mission that there was no presidential, no strong presidential majority because he didn't dissolve, and obviously the examples in the 80s and since then the calendar has been changed. So we know that presidential elections generate legislative majorities, and we also know that's exactly what happened, and LREM, République en Marche, you know, one of their, I mean so you can add Modem's vote to it, you can, it didn't stand in all constituencies so 28% wasn't quite an accurate representation of the vote, so they did win more than that, but obviously it generated a very large majority. So basically, Macron is safe, Macron's party is safe, even now that all the Modem ministers from about three hours ago have gone from the government, even if he didn't need the support of Modem, he's safe in office for five years. So that really just confirms what we knew, there's nothing particularly unusual about what's happened in France in that sense. I think the other thing that we know, and this is a bit of a focus, a little bit more on, is that we know that presidential elections are really the catalyst for party system change in France. I mean that's when parties, new parties have formed, they're sometimes formed before the election, sort of with a view to the election, sometimes when parties do badly they're reformed after the election, but really, you know, the presidency and presidential elections are so central in France that when we get party system change it's usually as a function of presidential election. So again, in 1958, not a presidential election, but again, sort of referendum on de Gaulle, that's sort of a sweeping change in the party system. So that's why it's in brackets, it sort of confirms what happened. The Socialist Party, of course, has its current origins, I mean it goes a long way back before, but it's really its current origins with the day back of the 1969 election when it managed to do even worse than it did, or in its, I guess it wasn't quite in its form then, but the Socialist candidate did even worse than Amon did this time around, which is saying something, but it was that led to the reformation of the Socialist Party and it also led to the Union of the Left and the Union of the Left was a major divide, a major, it was a political strategy, it was a way for the Left as a whole to try to get back to power. That was a really redefining and reorganising moment. You know, if the Left had done, you know, pretty well in 1969, we may not have had a PS, we may not have had a Union of the Left because they might have not needed to be one. So that was a, you know, the presidential election causing a realignment of the party system. Similarly in 1974, the Gaulists lose, I mean how can the Gaulists lose the presidential in 1970? Well, but they do. And that, of course, makes them have to rethink themselves, reform themselves and then we get PR versus UDF and again that sort of party system on the right that goes forward for another bunch of years. 1981, the PCF, even though the PCF's been going down, after 1981, you know, we can almost talk about French politics without talking about the PCF anymore if we really want to. So 1981 was really important in that context with the PCF. And then in 2002, the UMP's created and, you know, that sees even, again, though the FN has been doing relatively well or at least has been increasing prior to 2002, that's really the time when we see the FN as being a party that we can't ignore. So in other words, presidential elections matter for the party system and I think that's what we've already seen that in some respects and I think we're going to see more of it. So, you know, so where are we now? I mean, so we've had the elections, you know, what's going to happen to all these different groupings and that's really what I'm going to talk about now. So on the sort of extreme left, as it were, the role of Mélenchon, the LFI, the France insumis, that's going to have to play itself out somehow. So I think Mélenchon has, in some senses, he's, you know, learned from Mitterrand. He's embraced the communists, so better to smother them and get rid of them. Effectively, he's almost swallowed up the communists. I mean, though they support him or they did support him, he can now form his own group without them. He can really pretty much ignore them, knowing that they'll have to support him in order to keep their votes. So, but he really dominates that left space now, that sort of anti-system anti-European left space. And I honestly believe he thinks he can win in that space. I mean, I think, in that sense, he's like the pen from the other side. I mean, he thinks this is a winning strategy. And we've seen from the presidential election this time, you don't have to win 50% of the vote at the first ballot, 40%, even 35%, not necessarily even 25% of the vote at the first ballot to win the election. So I think, I mean, I genuinely think he thinks he can win and I think he thinks he can do that by owning this large, what he would see as a large left, alternative left space. And that, you know, that's his way forward in the future. And in some senses, you know, we could be reliving a sort of a 21st century union of the left moment. I mean, you know, he has managed to federate, maybe even conquer a certain part of that alternative left with the socialists in a difficult position. The socialists' party is likely to split. Some of those are likely to go with Mélenchon, at least, to be a sort of a satellite of his organization. The Greens, well, you know, they're more pro-European, that's for sure, than Mélenchon. But there's a space there for some sort of union of the left that could happen in the future. So that could be a very, you know, a broader sort of more radical left wing force than there is currently there. So that's something we might, you know, at least think could happen. The PS is in bad shape, to say the least. And so I think just my default over all the years, I put the PS down, but there's a certainly a world in which, you know, you know, in a year's time, in two years' time, this slide wouldn't have been there because the PS would be just so irrelevant, probably wouldn't even be there anymore. But it could be so irrelevant, we almost don't discuss it anymore. That's at least an option. I mean, the PS could be going the way of those centrist parties that, again, in the 60s and 70s, we used to spend a lot of time talking about, and now they really, you know, they change their name, they change their name, we've sort of forgotten who they are. And, you know, they win one or two percent of the vote, you know, they have their local fiefdoms. The PS could go that way. It's almost, I mean, it's going to be refounded in some form. It's probably likely to split. And I think, you know, it's probably going to split probably in two ways, but it certainly has to think about how it's how the different elements are going to reposition themselves. I mean, there is certainly still an electorate and a percentage of people within the PS who are willing to work with Macron, who are really, you know, they're the sort of the Orlan-type people, or those who remain in the PS of the Orlan-type people, who would still see themselves as being pro-European, who could work with a sort of a left balance to Macron. But there's also a big percentage of people, given that a lot of those people have already left the party. There's probably a bigger now percentage of the seven percent of the electorate that remains who voted PS, who might well see themselves as being tempted by this sort of bigger union of the left. Even, you know, the Europe issue is a problem for how they might get on with each other. But nonetheless, there's at least a scenario in where, which the PS splits, and a portion of that goes on and supports this sort of more alternative left movement. And, you know, it has its influence that way, but really as a satellite or an element that's dominated by that alternative left vote. So the PS's future is not happy, I don't think. We turn to the républicains. They're in trouble too. This is a really depressing story. If you're supporting these parties as well, they're in trouble too. I mean, in one sense, okay, they didn't do as badly as they might have done at the legislative elections. I suppose it could have been worse. But, I mean, there was, if you look at the sort of the charts of how many seats they've got over the last four or five legislative elections, it's just gone down and down and down, even though they've won some of those elections. So, you know, if you were an LR, remember the LR elite, I think, you know, you would have to be asking yourself, you know, what do we need to do? What's the strategy that we need to adopt to get back into power? That's your, the assumption that you want to make. And I think the LR, a bit like the PS in some sense, but in a much more significant way still, because it's still a much more significant player, the answer is that there are two strategies and there will be a debate within the party, and it could, maybe the party would split, could certainly split into two groups in parliament, i.e. those who were elected under an LR label, could easily split into two groups in parliament. But there will certainly be some people who are willing to take, probably the majority, who are willing to take sort of the current line to see the national front as the area where voters could slip to. So, therefore, the strategy is to really make sure that none of that vote goes. It means you have to be very, very strong on security, you have to be very, very strong on immigration. You talk up a certain social aspect, so you're not necessarily as neoliberal in terms of the economy as you might be, but nonetheless, you really have that sort of, this is really the South Cosy line, the Vochier line, that sort of line. But where you really position yourselves near the FN to make sure you don't lose power that way, because that's where you might, that's your way back in. I think there's another space which sees the LR, the Jupe type space, which sees it as being more compatible with Macron, maybe even willing to work with Macron, but also sees the way back to power as a more centre-right, or at least maybe not centre-right, but a sort of a more traditional right party that isn't always so worried about what the FN is going to do, and that, you know, in that sense is was willing to consider some of the things that Macron is doing, his party is doing, maybe with a view to winning back those supporters. If the assumption is that Macron got elected because a lot of LR supporters voted for République en March, those people could go back. So it's not a silly strategy in some sense, that, you know, a more centrist or a more, a less hard line, if you like, LR approach, has the potential to challenge Macron and his supporters, and maybe as a way back for the right. But that's, I think, a debate that LR has to have, if it has it properly, and there are definitely two options as to how it could go, I think. The FN is also divided and, you know, as ever, you know, the worst sorts of divisions are personal divisions, and the LR, and the FN has lots of personal divisions. Those spill over into policy, into policy divisions too. I mean, I think, you know, the thing the FN is not doing is allying with the mainstream right. In other words, that that could be its way to power. It could decide, okay, we're going to be the sort of these sort of populist right poll of a coalition. It's never adopted that strategy. It's still out there as a strategy. It doesn't seem to be many people within the party you want to adopt it. So if we assume that that isn't going to happen, then it's really going to remain on the fringe. I mean, the fringe is with a large amount of support, but on the fringes in terms of coalition partners and so forth. So in some senses, you know, it's divided, it's got its own difficulties, but there's nothing to me at the moment, and we can be worried about it. That's not to say we shouldn't have a certain response to it, but I think in terms of winning power, I don't see the FN is any closer to winning power. It seems to be me to be further away from winning power now than it has been before. Which leaves us with Macron and the République en Marche Partie. Now I went back, I have quite a penchant for Maurice du Verge. Some people in the room at least one person will know. He wrote a great article in 1964, which was about centrism in France. It was called, he called it the centre in France, Le Ténel Marche. So and he calculated, I mean, and you know, you were going to have a question, but he sort of, he was trying to, he was always a little bit disruptive in his ideas and he said, you know, whatever you might think, from revolution onwards, from revolution through Vichy up to 1958, France for the vast majority has been governed in the centre. And that was the point of this article. And he said, yes, centre left and centre right, but basically in the centre. And in 64 he was actually arguing that this is going to change with the Fifth Republic and in one sense, you know, we might have, we might have been born out, the centre parties did disappear and, you know, there was alternations between left and the right eventually. So maybe, you know, du Verge was right in that respect. But another way of thinking about du Verge was, well, he would maybe, let's just assume he was right about the period before 1958. Maybe he was wrong about the period after 1958, because in one sense is what we've seen after 1958 is alternation in power. Maybe not between the left and the right, but between the centre left and the centre right, because that's where you needed to go to win elections in a two-round system. So there's in one sense in which centreism in France never went away, even if centre parties went away, that it's still this Etennel Marais that has to be figured out somehow. So there are different options, I think, for the République en Marche. One is a sort of an Italian option where it's in power forevermore, like the DC was in Italy, at least up to a point, because, you know, it is the centre, the extremes are unpopular, too unpopular to be electable, and almost by default, and this is the sort of story we hear about Macron's election this time, almost by default, he's in power, for a very, very long time. That does assume the electoral system doesn't magnify small changes in votes, say, to the République, that could be a problem, but nonetheless he has talked about introducing PR, which might make République en Marche a sort of coalition partner from now until evermore. So in other words, if he was bold enough, and if he was willing at a certain point in the future to share power in a coalition, it's at least feasible to say that République en Marche could be the centrist, a centrist party, right, left, doesn't really matter, that is pivotal to future coalitions for the forthcoming time. Another option is to see the sort of République en Marche changing its attitude and taking up that space that the socialist party is vacated. So it would actually become a more sort of Bicina, more sort of a centre left type organisation, and really where the competition was with the République en on the sort of centre right. So you still get this old centre left, centre right, fifth republic type competition, but where strategically the votes to be won now are if the République can decide this centre right strategy, then the votes to be won are on the sort of centreish left and that would be the competition. I'm not convinced about this scenario because République en Marche has tried to win on the sort of centre right grounds itself, maybe more than the centre left, so it would involve I think a little bit of a change of the strategy on that part. But nonetheless it's at least an option that would allow this Étene en Marche to be around still, but where the LREM becomes a more centre left one. And the final option really is to see the République en Marche, it's almost this election scenario played out in the future, which is to see République en Marche basically competing with the République en. The assumption there is that the alternative left, the Mélenchon left isn't just big enough to win and that the right, the National Front isn't big enough to win and that this is almost the status quo of how it's positioned itself at the moment. Whether it can maintain that position I think depends on what the République en do. The République en are really to try to win at the, if not the centre, but somewhere closer to the centre right than they have been doing in the last time. It would be difficult for both the République en Marche and the République en to be fighting in that same territory. That could be that Macron eats up that sort of a République en party. But it could also mean that that's the way that the République en get back to power by competing with République en Marche on its own sort of centre right terms. So I think, you know, to conclude, this Macron is going nowhere, République en Marche is going nowhere, they're going to be in government for five years, there's no way they're going to lose power. But the whole party system has been transformed. It was transformed in part before the election. It's certainly going to be transformed. That transformation is going to continue after the election. I think it's going to be difficult, you know, the whole concatenation of circumstances is going to be difficult for République en Marche to maintain, to repeat what happened this time again. It was an unusual election. So it's going to have to, it is going to have to make some choices. Does it try and position itself in the centre? Does it make it so centre left? Does it make itself centre right? And its choices, its strategy, I think, are at least going to be partly dependent on what other parties do, what the XPS does, what the République can do. But I think one thing that we can say is that, you know, the situation is going to change. We're not at the end of a story now, we're almost at the beginning of a process in terms of the transformation of the French party system.