In a development that has stunned most political observers, the New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire, or NFP), a leftwing coalition, has won the most number of seats in France’s legislative elections that concluded on July 7. It secured 182 seats, defeating both President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance Ensemble (168), and the far-right National Rally (RN), which performed way below poll predictions, mustering only 143. With 289 needed for absolute majority in the 577-member National Assembly, and none of the three major political blocs close to this figure, France has been plunged into political uncertainty. But the country wasn’t even due for elections this year.

The whole chain of events began with the European Parliament elections in June. Marine Le Pen’s RN finished at the top with 31.37% of the votes, handing a crushing defeat to Mr. Macron’s Ensemble, which came a distant second with 14.60% votes. Mr. Macron responded to this setback by dissolving the National Assembly and calling snap polls. He justified his decision as intended to save France from being taken over by a resurgent far-right, ostensibly by forcing the French to choose between the moderates and those on the political extremes.

Many analysts, however, criticised his move as an impetuous gamble. The first round of the elections on June 30 seemed to vindicate the criticism. The RN won 33% of the votes, while the Macronists got just 21% — even less than what they secured in the first round in 2022. The NFP came second with 28%. Ahead of the run-off on July 7, exit polls predicted a comfortable win for the RN. But to everyone’s surprise, the leftwing bloc came first.

The NFP is a last-minute, hastily cobbled together coalition of four left-of-centre elements — the Socialists, the Greens, the Communists, and the hard-left France Unbowed of Jean-Luc Melenchon. The same four had come together to form the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (NUPES) ahead of the 2022 legislative elections, where they won 142 seats and denied Mr. Macron a majority. But NUPES broke up last October following Hamas’s surprise attack and Israel’s retaliatory invasion of Gaza. The fragmentation was triggered by Mr. Melenchon’s stand against describing the Hamas attack as “terrorist”, prompting the Socialists to quit the alliance.

Also Read | Resurgent left: On the French elections, European politics

Pressure from the ground

No one expected the perennially squabbling left parties to reunite so swiftly. But this time, the pressure for left unity was immense, and came from the ground up — from trade unions, citizens’ collectives, and civil society organisations. In the aftermath of the RN’s dominant performance in the European elections, and pollsters predicting a far-right victory in the election to come, thousands took to the streets, pressuring different sections of the French left to, in the words of Mr. Melenchon, “throw their resentments in the river” and stand together as a ‘republican dam’ against the destructive flood of fascism.

The very name ‘New Popular Front’ is a throwback to the Popular Front of 1936, the historic leftwing alliance led by socialist Prime Minister Leon Blum, which pushed back against fascism even as the rest of Europe crumbled before it. It is considered customary for the French Left to unite whenever the Republic is threatened by fascist forces. With victory for the RN a near certainty, the ex-NUPES parties worked overtime to negotiate a common platform, which became the NFP.

The results of the first round were encouraging for the alliance, as they finished second. But it wasn’t going to be enough to stop the RN from forming the government. Had it done so, it would have been the first time a far-right party came to power in France since the Vichy regime of the Second World War. But the NFP managed to avert this eventuality, thanks in large measure to the tactical understanding it reached with Macronists for the second round.

Invoking the notion of the ‘Republican dam’, both the NFP and Mr. Macron’s party withdrew more than 200 candidates from three-way contests to avoid splitting the anti-RN vote. While the NFP withdrew more than 130 candidates, about 80 Macronists stepped back, so that the run-offs became a two-way contest between the far-right and the rest. The strategy worked. Both Ensemble and the NFP did well while the RN’s performance slumped. The RN’s president, Jordan Bardella, complained bitterly about this tactic, calling it a “dishonourable alliance” that has “deprived the French people” of an RN victory.

When the results came out, Mr. Melenchon described them as a victory for the NFP and proclaimed that Mr. Macron should invite his alliance to form the new government. A minority government that forms issue-based coalitions is not unthinkable in France. There are constitutional provisions under which laws can be passed by decree. But Mr. Macron seems reluctant to work with a Prime Minister from the NFP, whose political programme is directly at odds with his own. Despite the sharp erosion in his party’s numbers, he has refused to accept Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation, asking him to temporarily continue in office. According to the Constitution, Mr. Macron, whose own term extends till 2027, cannot dissolve the Assembly and call for fresh elections at least for one year, or until June 2025.

‘Acts of rupture’

But the French Left are projecting the election results as both a defeat of the far-right and a mandate for an NFP government. The core of the NFP’s policy agenda is what they call “acts of rupture”, or a break from the status quo of Mr. Macron’s neoliberal economics. Weighted heavily by the priorities of its largest constituent, France Unbowed, the NFP’s ‘rupture’ programme tries to capture the spirit of the original Popular Front, which pioneered landmark pro-labour legislation such as paid vacations and 40-hour work weeks.

As per its policy programme, the NFP, if it comes to power, would immediately freeze the prices of essentials like food and gas, hike the minimum wage, and reverse Mr. Macron’s pension reform that increased the retirement age to 64. Subsequently, they would repeal Mr. Macron’s immigration law and reintroduce the wealth tax. On the foreign policy front, they will recognise Palestinian statehood and replace the idea of “unconditional support” for any nation with support for international rule of law.

As things stand, however, in order to form the government, the NFP may have to make several compromises, including junking the idea of Mr. Melenchon as Prime Minister. With influential sections of the French media, and Mr. Macron himself, likening a government at the mercy of Mr. Melenchon’s ‘far-left’ politics to be as dangerous, if not worse, than an RN regime, there is talk of a coalition being cobbled together from among the Macronist centrists and the moderates from the right as well as the left. But that won’t be easy as even the moderates in the NFP camp would find it difficult to walk away from the “rupture” agenda.

With Mr. Macron under no deadline to name a new Prime Minister, the messy political scenario may not resolve itself before the Olympics, the nation’s top priority at the moment, are over. For now, the French Left are basking in their unforeseen success in halting the far-right juggernaut in its tracks — an achievement that continues to elude mainstream political parties across much of Europe.

After a shock defeat in France’s legislative elections, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) will double down on weeding out problematic candidates to counter successful efforts by mainstream parties to block the far right from power.

Polls had suggested the RN would secure the most seats in the snap two-round election, which French President Emmanuel Macron called after Ms. Le Pen’s party was the clear victor of June’s European parliamentary vote. Yet the RN ultimately placed third, with its hopes of forming France’s first far-right government since World War II thwarted by centrist and left-wing parties who withdrew about 200 third-placed candidates to unify the anti-RN vote. The strategy, known as the “republican front”, is a feature of French political life and has been used for decades to block the RN from power.

‘Casting errors that cost us dearly’

RN officials and lawmakers who spoke to Reuters believe the party can overcome this electoral barricade if it professionalises further, following a path laid out by Ms. Le Pen after she lost the 2017 presidential election to Macron. That means greater screening of potential candidates and tougher party discipline to avoid costly gaffes, they said.

In the run-up to the vote, media reports unveiled an RN candidate who had been photographed in a Nazi cap and another who sought to defend against the party’s history of racism and antisemitism by saying she had a Jewish eye doctor and Muslim dentist. After the vote, a newly elected RN lawmaker was ejected from the party’s parliamentary group for saying French Arabs had no place in government.

“We have to avoid these casting errors that cost us dearly and clearly hurt us,” said Julien Masson, an RN official in Brittany.

Heads have already begun to roll, with Gilles Pennelle, a member of the European Parliament, stepping down from his role as the RN executive in charge of overseeing candidate lists. “He was blamed for the candidates who were not good, who were not up to the level,” Mr. Masson said. Mr. Pennelle did not respond to requests for comment.

Two RN lawmakers told Reuters there would be more media training to avoid a repeat of embarrassing interviews in which candidates appeared amateurish. RN lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy said the party was judged by an unfair standard, but acknowledged it needed to do better. “You always have to improve,” he told Reuters, adding that Ms. Le Pen’s 28-year-old protege Jordan Bardella would soon announce proposals to address “organisational problems.”

Le Pen’s popularity

Christophe Gervasi, who conducts private polling for the RN, said that as well as inexperienced and ill-disciplined recruits, the party’s tendency to be vague and inconsistent on policy proposals had dented its credibility. The party pledges to cut immigration, reduce fuel costs and be tougher on crime, common themes among populist far-right parties, but has dropped previous positions questioning EU and NATO membership.

Mr. Gervasi said it would be no easy task for the RN to overcome the republican front. “There are endemic structural weaknesses that persist,” he said. “The system is defending itself against the RN’s accession to power.”

Patrick Weil, a historian of the far right, said he doubted that an RN deep-clean would be enough for it to bulldoze the republican front. Much would depend on how the future government pans out and who stands in the 2027 election, in which Ms. Le Pen is likely to make her fourth attempt at the presidency. “If someone popular runs, Marine le Pen will be beaten. If someone very unpopular runs, she will be elected,” he said.

Adélaïde Zulfikarpasic, of BVA Xsight pollsters, said the surprising solidity of the republican front, which many had predicted to crumble in this election, underlined lingering discomfort with the far right. “The RN is undoubtedly still a little scary,” she said. “Its demonisation is not over.”

The tide is rising, says Le Pen

Sunday’s result was not a complete disaster for the RN, which nearly doubled its seats in the National Assembly. The party scooped up nearly a third of the popular vote, a record high for the RN in parliamentary elections.

The party can now watch from the opposition benches as centrist and leftist parties with no tradition of coalition-building guide France through a period of political instability. That could benefit the RN ahead of a 2027 election. “The tide is rising, but it has not risen high enough this time,” Ms. Le Pen said on Sunday. “Our victory is only delayed.”

The day after the vote, Bardella acknowledged the party had made mistakes, including on the choice of some of its candidates, but said the seeds of victory had been sown.

Towns like Nangis, located about 75 k.m. southeast of Paris in the Brie agricultural plain, provide hope for the RN. The constituency was in the hands of the mainstream, conservative right for 66 years until the RN finally wrested it away.

Isabelle Martin, a 52-year-old administrative worker, was among locals who voted for the RN. She was disappointed mainstream parties combined to stop the RN from winning power at the national level, an arrangement she described as “les magouilles”, or dirty deals. But she predicted the resulting political chaos would benefit the RN.

“The others have three years to prove that they can do something good,” Ms. Martin said. “If they haven’t pulled it off by 2027 then maybe (the RN) have a chance.”

Washington:

US President Joe Biden was “in charge” and on top of matters at a NATO summit with fellow leaders in Washington, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday.

“I was able to talk with President Biden at length yesterday at dinner,” Macron told reporters. “I saw as always a president who is in charge, clear on the issues he knows well.”

The French leader was also asked about a gaffe made by Biden just minutes earlier when he mistakenly introduced Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as his Russian foe Vladimir Putin, before quickly correcting himself.

The blunder intensified concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump two weeks ago.

“We all slip up sometimes,” Macron said. “It’s happened to me and it could happen again tomorrow. I would ask for your indulgence.”

Macron also said that France will continue to support Ukraine “as long as necessary.”

Asked about recent visits to Russia and China by Viktor Orban, Macron said the Hungarian prime minister did not go there with any “mandate” from the EU.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of CGT union secretary general Sophie Binet. File
| Photo Credit: AP

With just 15 days before the start of the Olympic Games in Paris, a leader of a major French union on July 11 called for mass strikes to pressure President Emmanuel Macron into “respecting the results” of recent legislative elections and allow a leftist coalition to form a new government.

France has been at the brink of a governing paralysis since Sunday’s vote for the National Assembly, the influential lower house of parliament, resulted in a legislature split between three political groupings: the New Popular Front leftist coalition, Macron’s centrist allies and the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen.

The New Popular Front alliance won the most seats in the legislature, but fell short of an outright majority to govern on its own. The alliance’s three main parties, the hard-left France Unbowed, the Socialists and the Greens, have urged the president to turn to them to form the new government.

Sophie Binet, the general secretary of the CGT union, said in an interview with French broadcaster LCI Thursday that if Macron did not respect the results of the election, “he risks once again plunging the country into chaos.”

Binet said the president should allow the New Popular Front to form the new government, although the leftist alliance has not yet proposed a candidate for prime minister because of internal divisions. She called on union members to take to the streets and “join rallies to put the National Assembly under surveillance.”

“There must be popular, citizens’ pressure so that the elections’ results are respected,” Binet said.

Macron has asked his prime minister, Gabriel Attal, to continue handling day-to-day affairs, despite Attal’s offer of resignation. On Wednesday, Macron said he will wait for the country’s political parties to build a broad consensus at the National Assembly before he can decide on a new prime minister, infuriating the leftist coalition and the unions.

The new legislature’s inaugural session is scheduled for July 18.

CGT railway workers called for nationwide rallies on July 18 in front of the prefectures and near the National Assembly in Paris to demand the New Popular Front be allowed to form a government, according to the union’s statement.

The social situation in France was already tense before the political turmoil unleashed by the early legislative elections. There were protests from teachers, police officers and farmers that followed huge demonstrations last year against a rise in the retirement age.

Macron called the surprise snap election after the anti-immigration National Rally made huge gains in the June 9 European elections — a risky gamble in the hope that French voters would block the far-right party as they always had in the past.

The leader of the CFDT union, Marylise Léon, said problems are still acutely felt by many working people. She said Macron’s reluctance to name a new prime minister whose government could start addressing them is concerning.

“The expectations of workers around purchasing power and working conditions have not disappeared,” Léon said in an interview with broadcaster France Inter Thursday. “To strike is sometimes the only way to be able to unblock a situation.”

She said the union would not rule out strikes during the July 26-Aug. 11 Olympics “in certain sectors if social dialogue breaks down,” including in private security and at the Paris airports. However, she added, “the goal of CFDT is not to block the Olympics.”

A coalition on the left that came together unexpectedly ahead of France’s snap elections won the most parliamentary seats in the vote, according to polling projections. The surprise projections put President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance in second and the far right in third.
| Photo Credit: AP

French parties sought to project strength and gather allies on July 9, with the government adrift following an election in which no one political force claimed a clear majority.

Having defied expectations to top the polls, new MPs from the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance began showing up to visit their new workplaces in parliament ahead of a first session on July 18.

But the coalition of Greens, Socialists, Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) is still debating over who to put forward as a potential Prime Minister and whether it could be open to working in a broader coalition.

Combined, the left-leaning parties hold 193 of 577 seats in the National Assembly and are well short of the 289-seat threshold for a majority.

Nevertheless, members plan to name a potential Prime Minister “by the end of the week,” leading LFI figure Mathilde Panot said.

In the French system, the President nominates the Prime Minister, who must be able to survive a confidence vote in parliament — a tricky proposition with three closely-balanced political forces in play.

Also Read | France President Emmanuel Macron bid to reshape political landscape leaves no clear path to form new government

Any left-leaning government would need “broader support in the National Assembly,” influential Socialist MP Boris Vallaud acknowledged in an interview with broadcaster France Inter.

Mr. Macron’s camp came second in Sunday’s vote, taking 164 seats after voters came together to block the far-right National Rally (RN) from power.

This left the anti-immigration, anti-Brussels outfit in third place with 143 MPs.

The President has kept Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s government in place for now, hoping horse-trading in the coming days and weeks could leave an opening for him to reclaim the initiative.

However, “there has been an institutional shift. Everyone thinks it’s up to the newly-elected National Assembly to bring forth a solution, which (Mr. Macron) would simply have to accept,” wrote commentator Guillaume Tabard in conservative daily Le Figaro.

‘None can govern alone’

In a sign that some divisions remain, the left parties’ MPs planned to enter the parliament at different times throughout the day.

The Socialists are still hoping to glean a few more members for their group to outweigh LFI and have a greater say over the alliance’s direction.

Meanwhile, members of Mr. Macron’s camp were eyeing both the centre-left Socialists and conservative Republicans as possible allies of convenience for a new centrist-dominated coalition.

“None of the three leading blocs can govern alone,” Stephane Sejourne, head of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party, wrote in daily Le Monde.

“The centrist bloc is ready to talk to all the members of the republican spectrum,” he added — while naming red lines including that coalition members must support the EU and Ukraine and maintain business-friendly policies.

These requirements, he warned, “necessarily exclude LFI” and its caustic founder Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Markets are paying close attention to the EU’s second-largest economy.

Ratings agency Moody’s warned it could downgrade its credit score for France’s more than three-trillion-euro debt pile if a future government reverses Mr. Macron’s widely-loathed 2023 pension reform, echoing a Monday warning from S&P on the deficit.

What next?

Even as politicians struggle to define the immediate path ahead, eyes are also already turning to the next time French voters will be called to the polls.

Macron’s term expires in 2027 and he cannot run a third time — potentially leaving the way open for his twice-defeated opponent, RN figurehead Marine Le Pen, to finally capture the presidency.

The far-right outfit has been digesting a disappointing result after polls suggested it could take an absolute majority in parliament.

On Tuesday, party sources told AFP its director-general Gilles Penelle had resigned.

Penelle, elected last month to the European Parliament, was the architect of a “push-button” plan supposed to prepare the RN for snap elections, which ultimately failed to produce a full roster of credible candidates.

The far right outfit’s progress is undeniable, having advanced from just eight MPs soon after Mr. Macron’s first presidential win in 2017 to 143 today.

OPINION | ​Resurgent left: On the French elections, European politics

Greens and LFI leaders nevertheless called Tuesday for the RN to be shut out of key parliamentary posts.

“Every time we give them jobs, we increase their competence. It’s important not to give them jobs with responsibilities,” leading LFI lawmaker Mathilde Panot said.

“Today we represent 10 million French people with 143 MPs,” retorted RN representative Thomas Menage, calling the appeal “anti-democratic”.

As for Mr. Macron, he has sought to stay above the fray, planning for a trip to Washington for a NATO summit starting on Wednesday where allies may be in need of reassurance of France’s stability.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
| Photo Credit: AP

French President Emmanual Macron refused the resignation of the country’s Prime Minister, asking him on July 8 to remain temporarily as the head of the government after chaotic election results left the government in limbo.

French voters split the legislature on the left, center and far-right, leaving no faction even close to the majority needed to form a government. The results from July 7 (Sunday’s) vote raised the risk of paralysis for the European Union’s second-largest economy.

President Emmanuel Macron gambled that his decision to call snap elections would give France a “moment of clarification,” but the outcome showed the opposite, less than three weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics thrusts the country on the international stage.

France’s main share index opened with a dip, but quickly recovered, possibly because markets had feared an outright victory for the far right or the leftist coalition.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal had said he would remain in office if needed but offered his resignation Monday morning. Mr. Macron, who named him just seven months ago, immediately asked him to stay on “to ensure the stability of the country.”

Mr. Attal on July 7 made clear that he disagreed with Mr. Macron’s decision to call the surprise elections. The results of two rounds of voting left no obvious path to form a government for either the leftist coalition that came in first, Mr. Macron’s centrist alliance, or the far right.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron takes a selfie photograph with supporters after casting his vote in the second round of France’s legislative election at a polling station in Le Touquet, northern France on July 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

President Emmanuel Macron on July 8 was to start efforts to extract France from its most severe political uncertainty in decades after the left defeated the far right in elections with no group winning an absolute majority.

The outcome of the legislative elections, called by Mr. Macron three years ahead of schedule in a bid to reshape the political landscape, leaves France without any clear path to forming a new government three weeks before the Paris Olympics.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is due to submit his resignation to Mr. Macron on July 8 but has also made clear he is ready to stay on in a caretaker capacity as weeks of political uncertainty loom.

The left is emerging as the biggest group in the new parliament but has yet to even agree on a figure who it would want to be the new Prime Minister.

The unprecedented situation is taking shape just as Macron is due to be out of the country for most of the week, taking part in the NATO summit in Washington.

“Is this the biggest crisis of the Fifth Republic?” that began in 1958, asked Gael Sliman, president of the Odoxa polling group.

“Emmanuel Macron wanted clarification with the dissolution, now we are in total uncertainty. A very thick fog.”

Divided parliament

After winning the June 30 first round by a clear margin, the results were a major disappointment for the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, even if her forces are set to boast about their biggest ever contingent in parliament.

Macron’s centrist alliance will have dozens fewer members of parliament, but held up better than expected and could even end in second.

The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) — formed last month after Macron called snap elections — brought the previously deeply divided Socialists, Greens, Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) together in one camp.

Projections by major polling agencies showed the NFP set to be the largest bloc in the new National Assembly with 177 to 198 seats, Macron’s alliance on 152 to 169 seats and the RN on 135 to 145 seats.

That would put no group near the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority and it remains unclear how a new government could be formed.

Macron, who has yet to speak in public about the projections, is calling for “prudence and analysis of the results”, said an aide, asking not to be named.

LFI lawmaker Clementine Autain called on the NFP alliance to gather on Monday to decide on a suitable candidate for prime minister.

In key individual battles, Le Pen’s sister Marie-Caroline narrowly lost out on being a lawmaker, but former president Francois Hollande will return to frontline politics as a Socialist member of parliament.

‘Muddle’

Firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of LFI and the controversial figurehead of the NFP coalition, demanded that the left be allowed to form a government.

Only one week ago, some polls had indicated the RN could win an absolute majority with Le Pen’s 28-year-old lieutenant Jordan Bardella becoming prime minister.

Instead, he expressed fury.

Bardella dubbed the local electoral pacts that saw the left and centrists avoid splitting the anti-RN vote as an “alliance of dishonour”.

He said it had thrown “France into the arms of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s extreme left”.

Le Pen, who wants to launch a fourth bid for the presidency in 2027, declared: “The tide is rising. It did not rise high enough this time, but it continues to rise and, consequently, our victory has only been delayed.”

The first round saw more than 200 tactical-voting pacts between centre and left-wing candidates in seats to attempt to prevent the RN winning an absolute majority.

This has been hailed as a return of the anti-far right “Republican Front” first summoned when Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie faced Jacques Chirac in the run-off of 2002 presidential elections.

The question for France now is if this alliance of last resort can support a stable government, dogged by a still substantial RN bloc in parliament led by Le Pen herself as she prepares a 2027 presidential bid.

Risk analysis firm Eurasia Group said there was “no obvious governing majority” in the new parliament.

“It may take many weeks to resolve the muddle while the present government manages current business.”

Paris:

President Emmanuel Macron has avoided his nightmare scenario of the far right coming to power in France but still faces an unprecedented challenge steering his country and the remainder of his presidency through an uncertain future.

Macron’s centrist forces performed more strongly than expected in the legislative elections, projected to come in second behind the resurgent left, with the far right that won the first round on June 30 in only third place.

Yet as he prepares to fly to the United States for a NATO summit in Washington, he now faces a number of headaches including a left that now believes it has a mandate to govern, his own unpopularity, and open dissent among some of his most influential allies.

There is still palpable anger among Macron’s allies over his decision to call snap legislative elections three years ahead of time after his party was trounced in EU Parliament elections last month.

The president argued that a “clarification” was needed in French politics.

“The decision to dissolve the National Assembly, which was supposed to be a moment of clarification, has instead led to uncertainty,” his former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Sunday in an unusually sharp barb.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who said he would offer his resignation Monday but was also prepared to stay on, said in an extraordinary show of dissent after the election that he “did not choose this dissolution”.

‘The question now’

The government’s strategy of employing a so-called Republican Front for the centre and left to team up to block the far right appears to have worked.

But the election will mark a turning point in Macron’s presidency with three years of his term still to run until 2027, with the very mixed new parliament inevitably becoming a far more important actor.

Macron appeared in no hurry on this occasion to make a rapid and theatrical decision, with an aide briefing media that the president preferred to analyse the full results before jumping to conclusions.

The president is confident “and is not going for a small majority”, the aide said. “The question now is who is going to govern and have a majority.”

Philippe raised the prospect of a broad coalition that would take in parties from right to left via the centre, but exclude the far-right National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).

So far the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) has not fractured even if the LFI’s firebrand figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon is a constant source of tension.

Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne, who leads Macron’s party, ruled out that Melenchon “and a certain number of his allies” would govern France.

But Laurent Wauquiez, a senior figure among traditional right-wing lawmakers, who won his seat, appeared to rule out entering into any coalition with Macron.

‘Tide is rising’

Macron’s own popularity has hit such a low that he stayed totally out of the final week of the election campaign, not making a single comment in public as the vastly more popular Attal took the lead.

After voting Sunday he mingled with well-wishers in Le Touquet, but did not repeat his walk through the fashionable Channel resort in a bomber jacket and baseball cap as he did in the June 30 first round, seen as arrogant by some supporters. 

Political manoeuvring will intensify beneath him. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who won his seat, has made it clear he plans to be a leading voice in the new parliament, possibly in alliance with the faction of Philippe.

And while the far right was defeated in these elections, its three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said she believed this would have no impact on her ambition to win the Elysee Palace in 2027.

“The tide is rising. It did not rise high enough this time, but it continues to rise and, consequently, our victory has only been delayed,” Le Pen said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Supporters of French far-left opposition party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed – LFI) react after partial results in the second round of the early French parliamentary elections at Place Stalingrad in Paris, France, on July 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A coalition on the left that came together unexpectedly ahead of France’s snap elections won the most parliamentary seats in the vote, according to polling projections on Sunday. The surprise projections put President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance in second and the far right in third.

The lack of majority for any single alliance plunged France into political and economic turmoil. Final results are not expected until late Sunday or early Monday in the highly volatile snap election, which was called just four weeks ago in a huge gamble for Macron.

The deeply unpopular President lost control of Parliament, according to the projections. Marine Le Pen’s far right drastically increased the number of seats it holds in parliament but fell far short of expectations.

The snap legislative elections in this nuclear-armed nation and major economy will influence the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability.

France now faces the prospect of weeks of political machinations to determine who will be prime minister and lead the National Assembly. And President Macron faces the prospect of leading the country alongside a prime minister opposed to most of his domestic policies.

Also read | France registers voter turnout of 59.7%, highest in four decades

The projections, if confirmed by official counts expected later Sunday or early Monday, plunge a pillar of the European Union and its second-largest economy into intense uncertainty, with no clarity about who might partner with President Emmanuel Macron as prime minister in governing France.

The timing of France’s leap into the political unknown could hardly be worse: With the Paris Olympics opening in less than three weeks, the country will be grappling with domestic instability when the eyes of the world are upon it.

For 46-year-old Macron’s centrists, the legislative elections have turned into a fiasco. He stunned France, and many in his own government, by dissolving parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly, after the far right surged in French voting for the European elections.

President Macron argued that sending voters back to the ballot boxes would provide France with “clarification.” The president was gambling that with France’s fate in their hands, voters might shift from the far right and left and return to mainstream parties closer to the center — where Macron found much of the support that won him the presidency in 2017 and again in 2022. That, he hoped, would fortify his presidency for his remaining three years in office.

But rather than rally behind him, millions of voters on both the left and right of France’s increasingly polarized political landscape seized on his surprise decision as an opportunity to vent their anger and possibly sideline Macron, by saddling him with a parliament that could now largely be filled with lawmakers hostile both to him and, in particular, his pro-business policies.

Already in last weekend’s first round of balloting, voters massively backed candidates from the far-right National Rally, in even greater numbers than in voting for the European Parliament. A coalition on of parties on the left took second and his centrist alliance was a distant third.

A hung parliament with no single bloc coming close to getting the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the more powerful of France’s two legislative chambers, would be unknown territory for modern France and usher in political turmoil.

Unlike other countries in Europe that are more accustomed to coalition governments, France doesn’t have a tradition of lawmakers from rival political camps coming together to form a working majority.

The sharp polarization of French politics – especially in this torrid and quick campaign – is sure to complicate any coalition-building effort. Racism and antisemitism marred the electoral campaign, along with Russian disinformation campaigns, and more than 50 candidates reported being physically attacked — highly unusual for France. The government said it deployed 30,000 police for Sunday’s runoff vote – an indication of both the high stakes and concerns that a far-right victory, or even no clear win for any bloc, could trigger protests.

Any cobbled-together majority risks being fragile, vulnerable to no-confidence votes that could cause it to fall.

Prolonged instability could increase suggestions from his opponents that President Macron should cut short his second and last term. The French Constitution prevents him from dissolving parliament again in the next 12 months, barring that as a route to possibly give France greater clarity.

A woman enters a voting booth in to cast her vote in the French parliamentary elections. File
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Voters in France’s overseas territories and living abroad started casting ballots on July 6 in parliamentary run-off elections that could hand an unprecedented victory to the nationalist far right.

Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration party National Rally came out on top of first-round voting last on June 30, followed by a coalition of centre-left, hard-left and Greens parties – and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance in a distant third.

The second-round voting began on July 6 off the Canadian coast in the North Atlantic territory of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, and followed in French territories in the Caribbean, South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, along with French voters living abroad. The elections wrap up on July 7 in mainland France.

Initial polling projections are expected when the final voting stations close at 8 p.m. Paris time (1800 GMT), with early official results expected late on Sunday and early Monday.

Mr. Macron called the snap legislative vote after the National Rally won the most votes in France in the European Parliament elections last month.

The party, which blames immigration for many of France’s problems, has seen its support climb steadily over the past decade and is hoping to obtain an absolute majority in the second round. That would allow National Rally leader Jordan Bardella to become prime minister and form a government that would be at odds with Macron’s policies on Ukraine, police powers and other issues.

Pre-election polls suggest that the party may win the most seats in the National Assembly but fall short of an absolute majority of 289 seats. That could result in a hung parliament.

Mr. Macron has said he won’t step down and will stay president until his term ends in 2027, but is expected to be weakened regardless of the result.