Yesterday, the French voted in the second and final round of the legislative election — and the result was even worse for Emmanuel Macron than the polls were predicting.
His centrist “Together” coalition was expected to lose ground and perhaps its majority in the National Assembly. In the event, they were hammered, losing around a hundred seats.
Furthermore, the electoral system, which is meant to keep extremists out, has failed. The Left-wing NUPES coalition, which is dominated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s anti-establishment LFI party, came second. In a surprisingly strong third place is Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. In 2017, her party won just eight seats, this time round it is 89 — easily the best result for the far Right in the history of the Fifth Republic.
So overall, it’s a shocker — especially for Macron. As I predicted last week, he will have to do a deal with the much diminished conservatives. The combined forces of the Macronistes and the centre-Right should have a slim majority (which in the 577 seat National Assembly starts at 289), but the stability of any deal would depend on the cooperation of the most Right-wing conservatives, who lean closer to Le Pen than to Macron.
Though the French president is endowed with a wide range of executive powers, he still needs a prime minister to head up the day-to-day functions of government. Unfortunately for him, the PM has to be approved by the Assembly. If the opposition wins a majority of seats then it can impose its own candidate — as happened during the three periods of “cohabitation” between 1986 and 2002.
Of course the difference now is that no party has a majority in the National Assembly. It is divided between four mutually antagonistic blocks. Without a stitch-up between Macron and the conservatives — i.e. the two big losers of the election — chaos beckons.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe