The French people have given their verdict. After Emmanuel Macron called the snap elections four weeks ago, polls predicted that Marine Le Pen’s party, National Rally, was poised to win nearly 300 seats. However, the far-right did not win the majority.
In a highly charged election, voters turned out in large numbers to stop their country from going far to the right. A left-wing alliance called New Popular is leading. France is heading for a hung parliament with no party having a majority.
That was partly because 217 candidates, mainly from the Macron camp and the left alliance, dropped out of the race to help their political rivals defeat RN. Ergo, voters who backed the centre or the left in the first round pivoted to a rival party a week later to keep the far-right National Rally from taking control of parliament.
Responding to the developments, Jordan Bardella, the twenty-eight-year-old National Rally, said ‘unnatural political alliances’ and ‘alliances of dishonour’ rigged the political system to stop them from coming to power, depriving millions of French voters of electorally expressing their anguish about France’s cost of living crisis. ‘We don’t want power for power’s sake but to hand it to the French people,’ he said. Sébastien Chenu, the spokesperson of the National Rally, accused Macron of leaving France in a ‘quagmire’ by conjuring up an alliance to enable a left-wing victory.
France Unbowed—led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical leader widely seen as far left by his rivals—makes for the biggest group in the left-wing alliance. Seizing the moment, he said: ‘The president’s defeat is clear; the president must accept his defeat, the prime minister must go.’
Gabriel Attal, France’s centrist Prime Minister, who took charge seven months ago, said he would hand in his resignation. However, he stated that the Ensemble alliance, a liberal political coalition created by Emmanuel Macron, would win more than three times the number of seats forecast. ‘The extremes have no absolute majority, thanks to our determination and the strength of our values. We have three times more MPs than were predicted at the start of this campaign,’ he said.
Mr Attal praised all the candidates who had withdrawn from the race to stop RN from winning and said French voters rejected the prospect of an extreme government. In a message to voters who backed the far right, he added: ‘I respect every one of you because there are no categories of French people who vote right and those who vote wrong.’
France needs a stable government during the Paris Olympics, which starts on 26 July. Mr Attal said he was ready to remain in the post ‘for as long as duty demands.’ But there are few people in the New Popular Front who are happy for him to stay in office. ‘The president has the power and the duty to call us, the New Popular Front to govern. We are ready,’ Mr Mélenchon said.
The alliance, which was hastily cobbled together, includes France Unbowed, Greens, Communists and Socialists. Greens leader Marine Tondelier said the Popular Front was ready to govern France: ‘We’ve won, and now we’re going to govern France,’ but said now was not the time to push for a new prime minister. Socialist leader Olivier Faure said, ‘France has said no to the far-right coming to power. The far-right made the choice of dividing the French people.’
One of France’s best-regarded politicians, Edouard Philippe, the former Prime Minister, said the election campaign had led to uncertainty in France. While a ‘crushing majority’ of the French people had said no to the RN, they had also not given the left a majority to govern. It was now, he said, up to centrist politicians to seek a deal that would re-establish stability in France after weeks of tensions.
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