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France’s Left-Wing Wins Most Seats in Parliament

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People are cheering

France’s left-wing coalition won the most seats in parliamentary elections, defeating the far right but failing to win a majority, according to final results early Monday. The result leaves France facing the alarming prospect of a majority-less parliament and political paralysis in the European Union pillar and Olympic host.

This could disrupt markets and the economy of France, the EU’s second-largest economy, and have far-reaching implications for the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability.

Macron’s decision to call election backfires

As France’s far-right surged in European parliamentary elections on June 9, President Emmanuel Macron, announcing the election, said sending voters back to the ballot box offered the best chance for “clarification”.

On almost every level, the gamble seems to have backfired. According to the results of the second round of the election, which were counted on Monday morning, the left-wing coalition won the most seats in parliament with 182. Macron’s centrists have 168 seats, and the unpopular president will have to form a coalition to run the government. The far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, who led in the first round of voting, gained 143 seats.

This means that all three major blocs fall far short of the 289 seats needed to control the 577-seat National Assembly.

“Our country is facing an unprecedented political situation and preparing to take on the world in a few weeks,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who plans to hand in his resignation on Monday.

As the Olympics approached, he said he was prepared to stay in his post “as long as his duties require”. Macron has three years left in his presidency.

Attar made it clearer than ever that he disapproves of Macron’s shock decision to call a general election, saying, “I have no option to dissolve” the outgoing National Assembly, where the president’s centrist coalition used to be the single largest group in parliament, albeit without an absolute majority. Nonetheless, it was able to stay in power for two years, pulling in lawmakers from other camps and beating back efforts to oust it. The new legislature appears to have lost this stability.

Left-wing supporters cheered as projections of their coalition’s lead appeared on a big screen in Paris’s Stalingrad Square. Cheers also rang out in Republique plaza in eastern Paris, where people spontaneously embraced strangers and continued to applaud for several minutes after the projection landed.

Even before the vote, the election redrew the political map of France. It prompted left-wing parties to put aside their differences and join together to form a new coalition, the new Popular Front (NPF), which promises to undo many of Macron’s major reforms, launch a costly public spending program, and take a much tougher stance on foreign policy toward Israel because of is Israel’s war with Hamas.

Macron warns against left-wing coalition’s economic plans

Macron called the left-wing coalition “extreme” and warned that its tens of billions of euros of public spending on economic programs, partly financed by tax increases on high-income earners and the wealthy, could be devastating for France. France’s debt has already been criticized by European Union regulators.

However, with projections and vote counts showing the NPFL gaining the most seats, its leaders immediately urged Macron to give the coalition its first chance to form a government and nominate a prime minister to share power with the president.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the most prominent left-wing coalition, said it was “ready to govern”.

While the National Rally is far from the absolute majority it had hoped for, the anti-immigrant party, which has historical ties to anti-Semitism and racism, has gained more seats than ever before in the National Assembly.

After the party took the lead in the first round of voting last weekend, its rivals teamed up to crush the party’s hopes of an outright victory in Sunday’s runoff, strategically dropping candidates in many constituencies. That left many far-right candidates head-to-head with only one opponent, making it harder for them to win.

Many voters felt that stopping the far-right from taking power was more important to them than anything else, and therefore supported far-right opponents in the second round of voting, even if those opponents were not from the political camps they usually support.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Alliance, said the election had laid the groundwork for “tomorrow’s victory”. She is believed to be running for a fourth term as French president in 2027. “The tide is rising,” she said, “this time not high enough.” “The reality is that our victory has just been postponed.”

Jordan Bardella, 28, who had been hoping to become prime minister, bemoaned the fact that the vote had “thrown France into the arms of the far left”.

In a statement issued by his office, Macron said he would not rush to invite a potential prime minister to form a government. The statement said he was following the results of the election and would wait for the new National Assembly to be formed before making the “necessary decisions”.

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