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| Founder of France's Unbowed Party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, watches as results from the second round of France's legislative elections show his left-wing alliance won the most seats |
The largest political bloc in parliament, the left, according to Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the left in France, is “ready to govern,” but no party secured a clear majority, leaving the nation in a state of political impasse.
Figures from the interior ministry indicate that the New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, led by Melenchon and its allies, took 187 seats out of the 577 seats in the National Assembly of France after winning a plurality in the second round of legislative elections on Sunday.
President Emmanuel Macron suffered a setback as a result of the outcome, as his centrist Ensemble alliance managed to capture 159 seats. Despite a strong performance in the first round, Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) and its allies unexpectedly placed third with 142 seats.
The second-biggest economy in the eurozone is facing a hung parliament, which has never happened before in modern times, since none of the top three alliances was able to secure the 289 seats required to form a government.
This might force Macron to ask the left-wing NFP group to head the government or attempt to forge a shaky alliance with moderates on the left and right. In order to manage daily affairs, he can also turn to a technocratic government that is impartial towards politics.
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The fragmented results are set to weaken France’s role in the European Union and farther afield and make it hard for anyone to push through a domestic agenda.
“He [Macron] is in quite a difficult situation,” Rainbow Murray, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera. “His party has fewer seats than it had before, but it’s still strong enough relative to the left for it not to be obvious for him to stand down either. So I think there are going to be some quite tense negotiations.”
“One of the key questions people are going to be debating is who is going to get to lead the next government.”
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Macron requested that Prime Minister Gabriel Attal remain in office "for the time being in order to ensure the country's stability" despite Attal's Monday promise to step down.
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| Olivier Faure, centre, the first secretary of the French Socialist Party, says the leftist coalition will chose a prime minister candidate this week |
Step Vassen of Al Jazeera, who is based in Paris, stated that Macron would probably "take his time" and hold off on making significant changes until the new political climate has had time to "settle in."
Macron was quickly urged to allow the NFP alliance to try and build a government. The coalition promises to rescind many of Macron's most prominent initiatives, start an expensive public spending programme, and adopt a more aggressive stance towards Israel in light of the Gaza War.
“According to the logic of our institutions, Emmanuel Macron should today officially invite the New Popular Front to nominate a prime minister,” said Green leader Marine Tondelier, one of a number of NFP figures seen as potential prime minister candidates.
“Will he or won’t he? As this president is always full of surprises, we’ll see,” she said on RTL radio.
Melenchon emphasised that acknowledging the State of Palestine would be among their first measures "as quickly as possible," underscoring the possibility that important choices would be made "by decree" on both the national and international levels.
Macron stated in February that while he was open to the idea of recognising a state for Palestine, he felt it should "come at a useful moment" and not be "emotional."
Will the NFP create agreement?
The NFP, which consists of a number of leftist parties like the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Greens, and Melenchon's France Unbowed (LFI), will need to maintain its unity and consensus on a course of action.
The coalition "needs to decide on a balance point to be able to govern," according to LFI legislator Clementine Autain. She said that Melenchon, who is divisive even within his own party, and former Socialist President Francois Hollande should not be prime ministers.
The Socialist Party's head, Olivier Faure, called for "democracy" within the left-wing coalition, stating that by the end of the week, members will select a prime ministerial candidate from within.
Co-president of the alliance's smaller, pro-European Place Publique party, Raphael Glucksmann, stated in the forecasts that "people are going to have to behave like adults, even though we're ahead in a divided parliament."
“People are going to have to talk to each other.”
In his first reaction, RN leader Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s protege, called the cooperation between anti-RN forces a “disgraceful alliance” that he said would paralyse France.
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Le Pen, who will likely be the party’s candidate for the 2027 presidential election, said, however, that Sunday’s elections, in which the RN made major gains, had sown the seeds for the future.
“Our victory has been merely delayed,” she said.
‘Cracks appearing’
Vassen said there are “cracks appearing” within the NFP camp that Macron may try to exploit for his own ends.
“This could be part of a strategy he [Macron] is playing to win some time,” Vassen said.
Macron, whose presidential term runs until 2027, called the shock snap elections shortly after support for France’s far right surged in European Parliament elections in June.
Rather than rallying behind Macron as he had hoped, millions of French people took the vote as an opportunity to vent their anger about inflation, crime, immigration and other grievances, including his style of government.