Paris, France, June 14, 2022 By Socrates George Kazolias.

The 2022 French elections were so catastrophic, I fear the country could really face what alarmist pundits call the ‘coming civil war’ and fall apart at the seams in the next couple of years. Does this sound like scaremongering? Read on.

A Divided Nation

I’m very upset about the election results. This country will be ungovernable and in two years Macron may well have to dissolve parliament and hold new elections. Perhaps they will be forced to at last introduce proportional voting. (That is if he doesn’t impose martial law first (see below)

I will put an empty envelope in the urn Sunday as my choice in the second round is between Macron’s globalists and urban Bobo elite, and Mélenchon’s ‘anything anti-France goes.’ I can’t caution a system which doesn’t represent the Will of the people and I have never voted for ‘the lesser of evils.’

The worst is the massive abstention which began to be a serious problem with Macron’s election in 2017: a president with 23% of registered voters. It was even worse this year. 

Abstention is not a French ‘normal’ and bids trouble ahead.

Because of the abstention, both Macron’s and Mélenchon’s parties got roughly 12.5% of registered voters on Sunday, while Le Pen’s was close to 8.5%. I don’t know how you can validate such results. To win in the first round straight out, you need not only more than 50% of the votes cast but those votes must equal at least 25% of the registered voters.

Macron’s ‘fake’ super-majority allowed him to rule by decree. Decisions were made each week in a top-secret Defense Council where no notes are taken. Decisions were then given to the Council of Ministers the following day. No debates. No votes. “You have your orders.”

What Americans and other democracies need to understand about the French is when they don’t believe in the system and don’t go to the polling stations, they will vote with their feet in the streets. Given the high inflation, in large part due to sanctions on Russia, Macron’s planned social and labor reforms and certainly higher taxes to come, or just as high, (debt is now 120% of GDP) the French will have plenty to demonstrate their anger against.

And everybody realizes that France’s super rich doubled their wealth during the Covid crisis while 80% of the savings were made by the top 10%. The poorer French are digging into their savings, if they have any.

Three Blocks–Only One Can Remain

Mélenchon has been catering to the communitarian vote and especially the Muslim vote. It is estimated that nearly 70% of the Muslims who voted in the first round of presidential elections, voted for Mélenchon who has called for the “Creolization” of France.  He recently condemned the police for shooting up a car that was trying to run them over. A passenger was killed and the driver, a fugitive, was badly wounded. “The Police kill!” Mélenchon said.

Macron’s laws such as the creation of the ‘Elysée Task Force’ and the so-called ‘Yellow Vest’ laws have badly hurt democracy and rule of law by giving extraordinary power to the executive and the police, by-passing the judicial branch.  He made the State of Emergency permanent putting it under his direct control when before it needed to be renewed every six months by parliament.

Macron’s ‘make-believe’ majority in parliament (given the electoral system he managed to get nearly 80% of the seats in parliament with 23% of registered voters and 46% of the votes cast. It is even worse this year and Macron himself is the Fifth Republic’s worst elected president since 1969 with only 38% of registered voters in a second round that pitted him against right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen!

The Gaullist presidential regime is broken. The system doesn’t work. The country is divided into three antagonistic, irreconcilable, blocks. Mainstream politicians are using more and more the words “coming civil war” especially as those from migrant background increasingly impose their (Islamic & Crime) rules in large swathes of the territory where police and firemen fear to tread.

It is perhaps here where Macron will use state violence first to try to calm the right-wing block and thus have only the left ‘creolization” advocates to face.

I always thought that the tough anti-Covid measures imposed were a real-life dry run on how to impose martial law. I’m sure they learned many lessons. They were certainly able to identify the zones they will have to crack down on hardest.

The weakest and most vulnerable, as usual, will be the first to pay. But if they rise up, the Yellow Vest movement could seem like the dry run of a new revolution.