Macron’s gamble – to expand his coalition or allow the far-right to govern and undermine Marine Le Pen’s chances of winning in 2027 – has failed miserably.
Now France enters coalition-building phase as revived left and Islamist dominate hung parliament.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of France Unbowed (LFI) and a former presidential candidate, leads the largest group in the NFP, and is also the least preferred candidate among his coalition partners. It is unclear what kind of coalition Macron will be able to put together. The New Popular Front (NFP) is a broad and fragile electoral alliance of four parties, with no agreed leader and no shared programme. It will struggle to work with Macron.
French voters, through a historic mobilisation, may have successfully pushed back the threat of the far-right and reduced its momentum for 2027.
The National Rally (RN) has never been so close to the gates of power. After the first round of the election a week ago, Marine Le Pen’s 28-year-old protege Jordan Bardella was being talked up as Emmanuel Macron’s future prime minister. To everyone’s surprise, everything was reversed between the two rounds.
The National Assembly is unreformable, divided into three almost equal blocs that are more hostile to each other than ever, and none of which are in a position to impose themselves.
Emmanuel Macron will undoubtedly argue that he won his electoral gamble. But he hasn’t won – he has lost his political power. The centre of gravity has shifted from the Elysee palace to the National Assembly, which is now in gridlock and can no longer be re-elected for a year.
There are no winners. The RN may have doubled its seats; it did not win the majority that was within its grasp. The president’s centrist coalition may not have disappeared, but it has lost its relative majority. The New Popular Front, made up of a motley coalition of left-wing parties, certainly came out on top, but it has no leader, no majority and no common purpose.
The new National Assembly will have three large blocs – none of which comes near the 289 seats needed for an overall majority. While the success of the four-party left coalition, which has become the largest parliamentary group with 182 seats, may worry markets, it has no chance of forming a government and may be increasingly divided between its most radical component, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI), and the more moderate Socialists, Greens and Communists.
It will take many days and perhaps many weeks for a new government to be formed in France. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) did not win the election, but it has increased its seats in the National Assembly by 60% since 2022. The far right has not gone away.
Ironically, Macron is responsible for creating this situation. He broke away from the Socialist Party in 2016 to launch a new centrist movement (now called Renaissance). This transformed the traditional bipolarised party system, destroying the centre-right Les Républicains and creating more space on the extreme right for Marine Le Pen’s party to grow – which it has done clearly in this election, with its number of MPs increasing from 89 to 143. Le Pen’s aspirations for a third shot at the presidency in 2027 remain on track.
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