Polarita straníckeho systému a stranícka rekompozícia vo Francúzsku po roku 2017: návrat politického stredu
The Polarity of the Party System and the Party Recomposition in France after 2017: The Return of the Political Centre

Summary/Abstract: Emmanuel Macron’s electoral victory and the rise of his political subject La République en Marche, led to significant changes at the level of French party politics in recent decades. This new political entity has taken the dominant position of the presidential majority, implying the disintegration of the bipolar “cartel” of the Socialist Party and the Republicans in the National Assembly. In addition to the fundamental recalculation of power relations through the election outcomes, it has resulted in a major reversal at the level of the classical party forces – left and right block, so that the structure criteria of the former party system were significantly violated. In this paper, we provide a more analytical view of which poles formed the party system of the 5th French Republic. We argue that the typical bipolar configuration in the form of the dominant left and right polarity has not existed from the first moment. We carry out a reconstruction of the main poles of the French party system through seat distribution by the individual political groups in the legislature. The key argument of our article is that the structural impact of the Macronist party’s electoral success has led to one of the most significant transformations of the party system’s polarity: the return of the political centre as the dominant pole and the shift from bipolarity to tripolarity. Regarding the sustainability of the new party reconfiguration, we conclude with several scenarios of further development.

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