W Sundays in the country Agathy Christie (1946) eccentric Lucy Angkatell invites Christow matrimony (John, a prominent doctor from Harley Street, and his wife Gerda) and a group of friends for the weekend to his estate. Detective Hercules Poirot is besides invited to dinner.
The next day he will witness a scene that looks like a peculiar setup: Gerda Christow stands with a weapon in his hand next to John's body, his blood will drip right into the pool. There are besides Lucy, her cousin Edward and Henrietta – John's lover. In his last breath, John exclaims, “Henrietta”, and then dies.
It seems apparent the killer is Gerda. Henrietta takes a step forward to take her gun, but then releases it from her hand, and this 1 falls into the pool, which destroys evidence in the form of Gerda's fingerprints on the handle. Poirot realizes that the cry of the dying “Henrietta” was a call of a lover to defend his wife from imprisonment for murder. Without any preconceived plan, the full household joins the game and deceives Poirot: everyone knows that Gerda killed her, and they are trying to defend her.
The scene of the crime is so set, but in a reflective way: the deception is precisely that it seems to be staged, the fact maskes itself as a appearance, and indeed the "guides" are false. Like Jane Marple said in Shots fired at Stonygates: “Do not underestimate the power of the obvious.”
If we put democracy under John's body and under Gerda, French president Emmanuel Macron, we get a reasonably akin image of this, what happens in France after the last parliamentary elections. Macron was caught with a smoking weapon over suspended democracy, although he did not break any law, but skillfully utilized the specificity of the French Constitution, which was imposed by General de Gaulle as the founding act of the V Republic.
The Constitution states that the president appoints a Prime Minister and a government that can operate even without confirmation of the mandate by the National Assembly. For this reason, Sartre felt that the Constitution of the 5th Republic was not democratic at all (he called it “a permanent coup”). The thought of its creators was that the French people must make a real choice in voting, not allowing organization stocks in mud typical of the III and IV Republics – and if they do not, the president should step in with his authority straight to keep order and stability.
Both European elections and those to the National Assembly showed that French voters did not make this clear choice: they gave Macron the chance to push the settlement through the crackdown of the fresh People's Front under Mélenchon and simultaneously attract Republicans/gaulllists. Macron is widely criticized for this, but in practice all parties support his way of resolving the situation.
No wonder this happened in France, whose political life is full of akin contradictions. Take an example Great Maya ’68: demonstrations that almost led to the overthrow of the government (or so it seemed). It is seldom noted that these protests took place in the very zenith of the French welfare state – the standard of surviving was never higher than in the mid-1960s.
In general, France is no exception: there are arguments for an enlightened dictatorship. Only that the constitution itself allows partial suspension of parliamentary democracy. We can imagine what will happen in Germany if you cannot make a government without an alternate to Germany.
Take Rwanda, 1 of the fewer Africans success storieswhere Paul Kagame as an enlightened de facto dictator forced peace between Hutu and Tutsi and brought comparative prosperity to the country. If he were overthrown, cultural tensions would rekindle in free elections. In another words, Western democracy without imposing any restrictions on it is increasingly little commonly useful – even in the West itself.
With all my distance to Emmanuel Macron's politics, I believe his reaction to the June triumph of the right had a scratch of authenticity. little than an hr after Macron announced the results dissolved the National Assembly and scheduled fresh elections. This declaration has put almost everyone in difficult situation – including Macron, who could not plan this decision in advance, and even a period earlier stressed that elections to the Euro-Parliament are crucial for Europe but not for France itself. His decision was so risky, but worth taking: even if she had won Le Pen, and if she had decided who would become the fresh Prime Minister of France, Macron himself would hold the ability to possibly mobilise a fresh majority against the government. The conflict with the fresh fascism must be fought with all power and as shortly as possible.
Only with the fresh elections on July 2024, something completely different happened. The expression that best describes the success of the united block against neofascism is: “We know well that Le Pen’s triumph is almost certain, the only open issue remains whether he will gain an absolute majority in parliament. The polls show this clearly, however... miracles happen, we can even win, we just gotta work hard and act fast." And that's what happened: not only did Le Pen not win the majority, but her National Unity only took 3rd place, much behind the left block and Macron centrists.
What's next? After defeating Le Pen among commentators he dominated the speech he best gave heading from CNN: “ Macron's play stopped the far right from taking power, but France has plunged into chaos.” The premise was that Macron and Mélenchon, a key figure in the left-wing alliance, disagree politically so much that a compromise leading to a large coalition does not seem possible. There will so be a prolonged period of instability that will surely harm the economy and make conditions for the overwhelming triumph of the National Assembly of Le Pen in the following elections.
Various grim signs can already be seen on the horizon – many Jews publically declared that they would vote for Le Pen due to the fact that Mélenchon is "subtly anti-Semitic" (yes, that is precisely what was used). But these signs are besides ambiguous: their meaning stems from an imagined catastrophe in the future, and yet in our power is to rewrite the past that leads us there.
To some, however, it is amazing that France has not fallen into chaos: it seems that Macron's play has paid off, and something resembling average life is going on without large disturbances. This suspension situation, with an unelected government, cannot proceed indefinitely (although why not?), but is infinitely better than the complete blockade of the National Assembly, which would bring lasting political unrest, pushing the country into social and economical chaos.
This de facto partially suspends democracy (since the Prime Minister and his government have no support for the democratically elected National Assembly) Macron stopped Marine Le Pen from gaining power and retained the stableness of France – for that he deserves congratulations. In the context of a global increase in the importance of right-wing populism, akin measures will now be needed elsewhere, as in the essay Some Notes on Populism Jon Elster boldly stated: "This common thought that democracy is at stake, we can reverse and conclude that democracy is simply a threat, or at least it is in its short word populist form."
I thank Kenneth Murphy for clarifying the legal framework that enabled Macron to act.
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Michał Sutowski translated from English.
