Macron’s coalition and left-wing bloc draw in French legislative elections

In the first round of French legislative elections, which took place this Sunday (12), the centrist alliance of President Emmanuel Macron, which does not have a guaranteed parliamentary majority, and the left-wing front created to oppose the president tied and won around 25% of votes each, according to exit polls.

These elections are crucial for Macron, re-elected for another five years on April 24, who needs an absolute majority to be able to apply his liberal-line policies without difficulty, such as changing the retirement age from 62 to 65, for example.

But for the first time in 25 years, the main left-wing parties — ecologists, communists, socialists and Unsubmissive France (radical left) — have decided to run on a united front, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a candidate who came third in the last presidential election.

Macron’s Juntos alliance won between 25% and 25.8% of the vote, while the leftist bloc Nupes (New Ecological and Social Popular Union) reached between 25% and 26.2%, according to pollsters after the closing of the polls. Abstention was just over half of voters, estimates show.

The French electoral system makes it difficult to project results. Voters must choose a deputy from their constituency —there are 577 seats in total— in a two-round election. Under the rules, to win in the first round, a candidate must have more than half of the valid votes and at least 25% of the total electorate, something that is difficult to happen – in 2017, only four deputies won in the first round. When there is no winner, the second round is held among those who have received at least 12.5% ​​of the votes of the total electorate.

The second round will take place on June 19, and the forces supporting the president could win between 260 and 310 seats, followed by Nupes, with 150 to 220, according to the research institutes. This means that Macron may not get an absolute majority of 289 deputies. For comparison, in 2017, the alliance led by the president’s party won 350 seats.

Mélenchon, a 70-year-old veteran politician who narrowly missed the second round of the presidential election in April with nearly 22% of the vote, is seeking revenge in what he considers a presidential “third round” to prevent Macron from applying his liberal project.

For the left, the president was re-elected in April not because of his program but because the French voted for him to prevent his far-right rival Marine Le Pen from coming to power.

Faced with the advance of Nupes and the possibility of losing the absolute majority, the 44-year-old French president entered the campaign in the final stretch to ask for a “strong and clear majority” in the face of “extremes”.

After the June 19 run-off, the country will know if Macron has received the full confidence of the French with more than 289 deputies, if he will be forced to negotiate with a relative majority or if he will have to govern in “cohabitation”, with president and parliament. walking in opposite directions.

In the latter scenario, “he would no longer set the nation’s policy, but the majority of the Assembly and the prime minister who leaves it,” says Dominique Rousseau, professor of constitutional law at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University.

France has had governments with a parliament and a president of different political leanings. The last cohabitation took place from 1997 to 2002, when conservative president Jacques Chirac appointed socialist Lionel Jospin as prime minister.

Like Jospin, who led the Left Plural alliance in the 1997 legislative elections, Mélenchon hopes to become the head of government. But the idea of ​​”French Chavez” in power, in the words of the current Minister of Economy, worries the ruling party.

Unlike the presidential election, the divided ultra-right did not reach the legislatures in a position of strength, beyond its strongholds in the north and southeast of the country. According to polls, Le Pen’s party can win between 10 and 45 seats in the election that took place this Sunday, behind the Republicans, the traditional right, with between 33 and 80 deputies. Éric Zemmour’s far-right Reconquista party can enter Parliament with up to 3 deputies.

Although purchasing power, in a context of rising prices due to the war in Ukraine, appears to be the main concern, the campaign was marked by several controversies about the actions of the police, such as the Champions League final at the Stade de France.