Macron’s party and its allies received 25.75% of the vote. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s new leftist alliance, Nupes, is almost the same.
President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal alliance and the opposition alliance led by leftist politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon are neck-to-neck in Sunday’s French general elections. According to official information on Monday night, Macron’s party and its allies received 25.75% of the vote. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s green-left alliance, Nupes, was much the same, receiving just 21,442 fewer votes. The exact distribution of seats will only be decided in the second round of next Sunday.
However, the percentages are insignificant because the 577 parliamentary seats are filled according to the first-past-the-post system. According to estimates by various institutes, the Macron alliance could reach 255 to 295 seats, the leftist alliance 150 to 210 seats. Until now, the President can count on an absolute majority in the National Assembly. Whether he can defend them will likely only be known in the second round of parliamentary elections next Sunday, when second-round elections are held in most constituencies.
“For the first time, a re-elected president does not win a majority in the general elections,” Mélenchon said. Leading Left Alliance representatives pointed out that they qualified for the second round in about 500 constituencies. That means the race for the majority is still open. The new alliance includes leftists, communists, greens and socialists. Mélenchon’s “Indomitable France” party is likely to win about half of the seats.
Right-wing populist Marine Le Pen says she is entering the second round of elections next Sunday in her constituency in Hénin-Beaumont. His right-wing national party Rassemblement National had forecasts of around 19%, but only managed to get ten to 45 seats because of ostracism from other parties. Le Pen, however, described his party’s performance as a “huge victory” and called for President Macron’s camp not to have an absolute majority in the second round.
The strongest opposition force so far, the conservative Republicans, has fallen with allies to just 11 to 14 percent or 40 to 80 seats. Voter turnout was estimated at around 53 percent.
Despite dissatisfaction with his first term, Macron benefited from the fact that parliamentary elections in France were perceived as confirmation of the presidential election. In particular, fans of the winner participate in the voting, while others usually stay at home.
For Macron, the question in parliamentary elections is whether he will be able to implement his plans in his second term. They are, for example, the controversial pension reform, purchasing power helps in the crisis and urgently needed improvements in education and health. The liberal also wants to focus more on environmental policy, but above all he wants to move forward with the expansion of nuclear energy beyond renewables. For all this, he needs a majority in Parliament. The second chamber, the Senate, is less important than the National Assembly and is currently conservative.
If the votes are only sufficient for a relative majority, the president and government would be forced to seek support from other camps. It is likely that there will then be a minority government that, depending on the project, will try to rely on center-left or center-right forces.