France faces a hung parliament and deep political uncertainty as France’s three main political groups of left, center and right received large numbers of votes in Sunday’s legislative election but fell short of an absolute majority.
The preliminary results upended widespread predictions of a clear victory for the National Rally, the anti-immigration party led by Marine Le Pen, which dominated the first round of voting a week ago. Instead, the left-wing New Popular Front won 178 seats.
President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition came in second with 150 seats, a month after Macron called a general election, plunging the country into chaos. Trailing behind was the National Rally and its allies, with 142 seats.
The results, compiled by The New York Times using data from the Interior Ministry, confirmed earlier predictions that no party or group would win a majority.
The details of the outcome may still change, but it is clear that the scramble by the center and the left to form a “Republican front” to counter the national rally in the second round of voting played a large role. Candidates across France have withdrawn from the three-way race and called for unity against Le Pen’s party.
“It is now the president’s duty to call the new Popular Front to power,” said far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the most charismatic but polarizing voice in the left-wing coalition. “We are ready.”
But France looks almost ungovernable, with the Paris Olympics opening in less than three weeks. The left surged, with the National Rally adding dozens of seats to the National Assembly, while Macron’s party suffered a crushing defeat, losing about a third of the 250 seats his party and its allies held in the National Assembly.
The result is a deeply divided lower house of parliament, where most legislative power resides, but where an immediate governing coalition seems unlikely, with Macron’s centrists squeezed between the far right and far left, who hate each other and him.
Ms Le Pen’s protégé Jordan Bardella, who led national rallies to victory in last month’s European Parliament elections and the first round of legislative votes, called the deals that hampered his bid for an absolute majority “disgraceful” Alliance,” said Macron condemning France as facing “uncertainty and instability.”
Although there were fewer seats than expected, the national rally has now taken hold in French politics, erasing a post-war political landscape that revolved around the far-right whose history of overt racism and anti-Semitism made it unworthy of positions of power. Built with a concept in mind.
Ms Le Pen denies this past. But even in the form of a name change, the party’s core message remains that immigrants dilute a glorified French national identity and require tighter borders and tougher regulations to keep them out or prevent them from France’s social safety net Benefit.
France rejected the vision but voted overwhelmingly for change. It doesn’t want more of the same. It sends a pointed message to the pro-business elite surrounding Macron, who is term-limited and must step down in 2027.
“France is more divided than ever,” said Alain Duhamel, a noted political scientist and author. “We understand that it is a very bad idea for Mr Macron to dissolve parliament and hold this election.”
France’s protracted political stalemate threatens to add to international instability at a time when a faltering President Joe Biden is struggling to counter the nationalist “America first” message of former President Donald J. Trump. Le Pen, who has long had close ties to Russia, has tried to recast herself as a cautious supporter of Ukraine, but there is no doubt that Moscow will welcome the growing influence of national rallies.
The New Popular Front ran on a platform of raising France’s monthly minimum wage, lowering the legal retirement age from 64 to 60, reintroducing a wealth tax and freezing energy and gas prices. Rather than cutting immigration as the national rally has vowed, the coalition said it would make the asylum process more generous and smoother.
The platform said the alliance supports Ukraine’s fight for freedom against Russia and calls on President Vladimir V. Putin to “account for his crimes before international justice.”
It’s unclear exactly how the coalition’s economic plans will be financed and how pro-immigration policies will be implemented in a country with perhaps the most sensitive issue at a time when France faces a ballooning budget deficit.
The New Popular Front, deeply divided between moderate socialists and the far left, performed well among young people in the first round of voting and in projects with heavy North African immigrant populations around major cities, including Paris.
Mr. Mélenchon’s ardent pro-Palestinian stance has proven popular in those regions, although he appeared to have crossed the line into anti-Semitism, accusing the head of the Jewish National Assembly, Jair Braun-Pivi, of “camping in Israel”. caused outrage. “Friends who unconditionally supported the Holocaust have joined forces,” he said of last November’s massive demonstrations against anti-Semitism.
Macron is not forced to call a snap election, but he is ready to gamble that he can still be a unifying figure against extremes. In fact, he has lost the appeal of doing so during his seven years in power. When he came to power in 2017, he declared that “left” and “right” were obsolete.
Still, Mr Macron’s centrist coalition ended up doing better than expected and he’s alive to fight another day.
Macron now appears to have two options, short of resigning, which he has vowed not to consider.
The first is an attempt to build a broad coalition that could extend from the left to the remnants of moderate Gaullist conservatives, some of whom broke taboos during the campaign and aligned themselves with the National Rally.
This possibility seems remote. Macron has made no secret of his strong dislike of Mélenchon. The feeling is mutual.
A second, less ambitious option would be for Macron to try to form some kind of caretaker government to deal with current affairs.
Mr. Macron, for example, might ask former prime ministers from centrist bloc parties (his own, the Socialists, the center-right Republicans) to recommend forming a government of technocrats or prominent figures who can handle a limited agenda in the future. .
According to the constitution, it will be at least one year until the next parliamentary election.
One area where Macron may still have considerable influence, compared with being forced to “cohabite” with Bardella as prime minister, is in international and military affairs, the traditional domain of the fifth president.
As an ardent supporter of the 27-nation EU that the country rallies to weaken, he will undoubtedly push for a “European power” with a more integrated military, defense industry and technological research, but his influence may be tempered by Weakening: Domestic weakness.
Macron, who was once tempted by the temptation of rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, has also become an outspoken supporter of Ukraine’s freedom struggle. With just four months until the U.S. presidential election, doubts are growing about the West’s willingness to continue arming and funding Ukraine.
Russia clearly believes France will waver. “The French people are seeking a sovereign foreign policy that serves their national interests and breaks away from the dictatorship of Washington and Brussels,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement a few days ago. “French officials will not be able to ignore these profound changes in the attitudes of the vast majority of citizens.”
In short, France faces enormous uncertainty both internally and externally. It seems that the possibility of a constitutional crisis in the coming months cannot be ruled out. Outgoing centrist Prime Minister Gabriel Attal tendered his resignation on Sunday, declaring that “with our determination and our values, the absolute majority tonight will not be controlled by extremists.”
He claimed a small victory, but of course the centrists did not gain such a majority either.
Unlike many other European countries, including Belgium, Italy and Germany, France does not have a tradition of months-long negotiations between parties with different views to form complex coalition governments, or a caretaker coalition. In fact, de Gaulle engineered the Fifth Republic in 1958 to end the parliamentary unrest and short-lived government of the Fourth Republic.
One explanation for Mr Macron’s mysterious decision to call an election is that with the country rallying to power and Mr Bardera as prime minister, the far-right party’s shine could fade ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
It’s another gamble, based on the idea that it’s easier to criticize from the margins than to make tough government decisions. Mr Macron does not want to hand over the keys to the Elysée Palace, the seat of the president, to Ms Le Pen three years later.
In this sense, the election results may confuse Mr. Macron and benefit Ms. Le Pen. She has demonstrated her growing popularity without her party bearing the burden of public office. On the other hand, France’s deep-seated resistance to the idea of a shift in power to the far right was once again on display.
