After snap elections gave a surprising victory to the radical left in July, France was left with no idea how to form a functioning government.

This is the largest nation yet to be crippled by democratic paralysis. The Netherlands, after its elections in November, took nearly six months to form a government. Belgium took more than 16 months after 2019, and following its latest elections in June it could take even longer. After the European Union’s June elections, the European Parliament is relatively evenly split between opposing parties, and it’s hard to see how they can approve anything even remotely controversial.

A leaderless Belgium is hardly a global crisis. But a leaderless France could transform Europe. Ninety years ago, a divided France enabled Nazi Germany to take over the Continent. What will happen this time?

Humiliation

French President Emmanuel Macron suffered a humiliating defeat during the EU’s parliamentary elections on June 6 to 9. The National Rally won the largest share of the vote. This party is usually described as far right, though far left would be just as accurate. Whatever you call them, they’re outside the norm of French politics, and for decades, parties on the left and right, which disagree about everything, have united to keep National Rally candidates out of office.

This time, National Rally received 31.5 percent of the vote. Macron’s party got less than half that.

Rather than spend the rest of his presidency as a lame duck with questionable or clearly absent public support, Macron called snap elections. The European Parliament exists mostly to give the EU the semblance of democracy; the result of the people’s vote in June, or at any time, makes very little difference. But Macron was calling a “real” election, gambling that voters would abandon the National Rally and keep the “adults” like him in power. All Europe paid close attention.

On polling day, June 30, the first-place winner was announced: National Rally. This formerly fringe party increased its vote share to more than 33 percent. It seemed set to storm to power.

But this was merely the first round of voting. Only candidates who win more than 50 percent in their district can take a seat in Parliament. In the vast majority of cases, no one managed this, so those who received votes from more than 12.5 percent of the electorate went through to a second round. The future of France, and of Europe, hung in the balance.

In the second round, National Rally increased its vote share even more, to 37 percent. But thanks to tactical voting, it came in third place. If a right-wing candidate was best placed to win, the left withdrew, and vice versa. So almost by accident, the New Popular Front won the election and 180 of the legislature’s 577 seats, despite winning only a quarter of the vote.

In a world that is constantly talking about the importance of “democracy,” this was a remarkable illustration of the bizarre results that emerge from the idiosyncrasies of election rules supposedly enacted to carry out the will of the people.

The National Rally, again, was kept out of power. But at what cost?

Rise of the Left

This is far from a major defeat for the National Rally. It still won 143 seats, much fewer than it had hoped for but still a significant improvement over the 89 seats it held before. The real prize is the presidency, which is up for grabs in 2027. And despite being on the losing end of strategic voting by other parties, the National Rally is well positioned to seize that prize.

For now, however, the alliance of left-wing parties that formed the New Popular Front is the most powerful force in France.

The largest party in the New Popular Front alliance is led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Following the election, he demanded to be appointed prime minister. But there is a problem: Mélenchon is as radical as the National Rally.

He’s an old-fashioned socialist. He wants France’s already socialistic system of welfare and workers’ rights expanded further. His most popular policy is to reverse the pension age increase, bringing it back down from 64 to 60. And he wants a 90 percent tax rate on all income above €400,000—which is a compromise from his earlier demands for a 100 percent tax.

On the international front, Mélenchon regards both nato and the EU as too right wing and wants out of both. He is also pro-immigration, drawing support from France’s Muslims, who also appreciate his party’s opposition to Israel and support for Palestinians.

His stance has pushed French Jews into a surprising position. The National Rally is a rebrand of an older party, the National Front. Its leader was Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of the current leader, Marine Le Pen. The elder Le Pen was regularly in trouble for Holocaust denial, with statements like, “I’m not saying the gas chambers didn’t exist. I haven’t seen them myself. I haven’t particularly studied the question. But I believe it’s just a detail in the history of World War ii.”

Marine Le Pen distanced her party from that past, even kicking out her father. But has the party really changed?

Mélenchon is so radically socialist that, despite what Le Pen and National Front had stood for in the past, many French Jews have voted for the National Rally for the first time.

As radical Islam has grown more menacing, as the world reeled in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, as France was shocked by the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Courbevoie simply because she was Jewish—Mélenchon denied that he or his party were anti-Semitic. Yet now that his party has come in first place, he is demanding France recognize a Palestinian state.

Bismarck’s Herring

There is another country Mélenchon doesn’t like: Germany.

A decade ago, he published a book titled Bismarck’s Herring, in which he warns that the “German empire is back.” “She has become a danger to her neighbors and partners,” he writes. “I denounce her arrogance and so-called ‘model,’ imposed for her profit alone. A monster is born across the Rhine.”

Mélenchon accurately points out how Germany gained power across the whole EU during the eurocrisis. Back then, he wanted France to stick it to Germany by printing billions of euros, giving the French state more cash and effectively robbing German savings accounts in the process by decreasing the currency’s value. He is in no position to take such a drastic step today, but the socialist policies he champions will be reflected to some extent in the new French government. And France cannot afford them.

France is over $3 trillion in debt, equivalent to 110 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. In June, the European Central Bank found the country in violation of the EU’s spending rules. The Montaigne Institute estimates the New Popular Front’s spending package would cost $195 billion a year. “It is exorbitant and would destroy everything we have achieved over the last seven years,” said outgoing Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. “The immediate risk is a financial crisis.”

A key indicator of how much people are worried about a European country is how much extra they have to pay to borrow money, compared to safe, low-debt Germany. In the lead-up to the election, this difference in borrowing rates between France and Germany was the highest since the 2011 Greek debt crisis. Borrowers and investors were afraid that National Rally would win, lower the pension age, and weaken the French economy even further. Now, even bigger spenders are the victors.

Greece running out of cash was a crisis for Europe. The French economy is 13 times the size of Greece’s. Compared to the rain shower of the Greek crisis, a French debt crisis would be a hurricane.

Germany’s Opportunity

France’s election result is a clear and present danger to Germany. More French spending risks a currency crisis, and one of France’s most powerful leaders wants to deliberately attack the German economy.

But Germany also has an opportunity.

Mélenchon and his leftist radicals have considerable power in Parliament, but they are far short of the 289 seats needed for a majority. No party or coalition comes close.

The French president nominates the next prime minister, but he needs the approval of the legislators in the National Assembly. It’s hard to see anyone receiving such approval.

President Macron has said he will not work with the National Rally. He is also trying to split the New Popular Front, saying he will not work with Mélenchon and his party, La France Insoumise (lfi), but will work with the rest of the alliance. But those two groups control 213 of the 577 seats. There is not much left to work with.

“France will probably be ungovernable for some time to come,” wrote John Keiger in the Spectator. “… France now is confronted by paralysis and institutional crisis. France has had 16 constitutions since 1789. Jean-Luc Mélenchon and lfi have been calling for a sixth republic for years. That moment may be approaching” (July 7).

Politico put it more simply: “Governing France will be hellish now.”

Ironically, Mélenchon’s victory may accelerate what he fears most: German domination of Europe. With France paralyzed and an anti-German crusader waiting in the wings, Germany may decide it must act quickly to further cement its dominance of Europe. Macron has already shown himself willing to empower Germany if it suits his interest.

When the 2008 global financial crisis began, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote: “The crisis in Greece is a forerunner of a whole rash of similar crises set to soon break out across Europe. They will provide the catalyst for the EU’s leading nation, Germany, to rise to the fore with solutions of its own making. Biblical prophecy declares that the result will be a European superstate with Germany at the helm. And that is not good news for America, Britain and the little nation called Israel” (“Did the Holy Roman Empire Plan the Greek Crisis?”, theTrumpet.com/5809).

France could be about to start another act in this crisis.

The euro ties Germany’s fate to other countries. When countries like Greece and Cyprus fell into financial trouble, Germany stepped in and bailed them out—and also took control of their spending, essentially running much of the country.

A French bailout would be much more painful. While France is divided, Germany could instead use this as an opportunity to establish control over all Europe’s spending, preventing the need for an expensive German-funded bailout.

Germany’s current government may not be farsighted enough to seize that opportunity. But the euro was created to push countries toward the European superstate that voters have never wanted. It ties their economies so closely together that some form of common control over taxes and spending is inevitable; otherwise, a country that is reckless with its spending—as we have seen in Greece, Italy and elsewhere—imperils those that are much more careful.

History Rhymes

Before World War ii, it was France’s political divisions that allowed a much more united Germany to tear through the European continent politically, then literally. On paper, France’s military was much larger, better funded and more experienced. Most viewed it as Europe’s dominant military power. The sun may have never set on the British Empire, but that was also true of the French Empire, with its 80 million inhabitants and 4 million square miles of territory.

Mélenchon’s New Popular Front is not a single party, but an alliance of like-minded parties. It is a callback to a similar alliance in the pre-war age: the Popular Front.

Popular Front leader Léon Blum became France’s first socialist leader in 1936. His election was enabled by similar national division. His anti-
Semitic opponents used the slogan “better Hitler than Blum.” Both extremes were repugnant, yet many felt they had to pick a side to check the greater evil.

As Adolf Hitler seized control of the Rhineland, annexed Austria, then Sudetenland, then the rest of Czechoslovakia, Europe’s most powerful army did nothing, paralyzed by internal divisions and consumed by political violence.

Today, Germany has a larger economy and population than France, and in recent years has spent more on its military. But rather than taking over Europe through armed force today, it is taking over through politics and economics.

With Britain out of the EU, if any nation were to oppose Germany’s vision for Europe it would be France. It could rally the nations of Europe’s indebted south in a coalition that Germany would struggle to oppose.

Yet once again it is too consumed with infighting. And Macron would rather empower Germany than cede power to his rivals. “Better Scholz than Le Pen” is not as terrifying a slogan as “Better Hitler than Blum,” but it hands Europe to Germany just the same.

Bible prophecy describes major changes coming to Europe. Those changes are happening already, although few are paying attention.

Revelation 17 describes a “beast,” or empire, led by a woman, biblical symbolism for a church. This empire rises and falls seven times. Only Europe has boasted an empire strongly influenced by a church that has repeatedly risen and fallen throughout history.

In this last, modern incarnation, 10 kings, or groups of nations, “have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (verse 13). They combine forces, give their strength and power to this revived Holy Roman Empire, and become a powerful conquering force.

France has played a key role in this European empire in the past. Napoleon modeled his regime both on ancient Rome and Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire. France today will indeed be one of the nations that contributes its considerable strength to the new Holy Roman Empire. But history and Bible prophecy show that Germany will be the lead nation, and a German will be the top ruler.

Germany will soon come out on top of this revived Holy Roman Empire. France’s instability gives Germany a powerful reason and opportunity to fast-track that pivotal prophetic moment.