The results of the French National Assembly’s second round elections came as a shocker to the entire world as none would have imagined that the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) would eventually lead, while the highly anticipated far-right National Rally came 3rd, after the NPF and Macron’s centrist party Ensemble. Macron’s party, which was hoping to be making significant losses this election, stood 2nd, holding a positive position in the French elections. It seems like the strategy of the leftists and centrists withdrawing their candidates after the National Rally’s strong position during the first phase of the elections really helped the centrists and leftists to block the resurgence of the far-right group in France.
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The Results after Second Phase
After the anti-Labour leftists of Britain won their respective constituencies from the Greens or as independent candidates, they had hoped for similar results in France too. Turned out, their hopes were heard. Anyone could have imagined the NFP will eventually lead the French elections. After the second phase, the NFP with a collective leadership won more than 180 seats, while Macron’s Ensemble won a little more than 160 seats.
Even though the National Rally came third with 140 seats, their performance has been much better than 2022, where they won only 89 seats. But all three parties are far away from the majority mark of 289 seats in a National Assembly of 577 seats. This has resulted in perplexity in French politics and might bring an unprecedented political instability in France.
3 Possibilities for the National Assembly
Since no party has touched the majority mark in the National Assembly, it will be a hard situation for the French to determine the future of their parliamentary politics. The future might have three possibilities which will determine the new government in France.
- A Coalition of the Moderates: Before the elections, Macron and his allies floated the idea of building a broad coalition, which included moderate lawmakers from both left and right to counter the far-right influence. For example, Macron can try to bring the Ensemble, the Socialist Party, the French Greens and some moderate Republicans to form a single alliance. However, due to the highly polarized political landscape, forming such a coalition might be difficult as the Socialists and Greens might be too left for the right wing Republicans to form a coalition with. Plus, Jean-Luc Melenchon of NPF has already stated that they’re not ready to compromise their ideals to form a coalition with any moderate right-wing or Macron’s centrist parties.
- New Popular Front Forms a Minority Government: Given the NPF’s large share of seats. Macron may be forced to appoint one of their leaders as prime minister. But this represents the very first problem of who? As the NFP was running through a decentralized leadership, there hasn’t been any prime ministerial face.
- A Blocked Parliament: If the three biggest parties are unable to agree to each other, this will result in a parliamentary deadlock- the worst scenario as any attempt of the government would be facing a no confidence motion. This will make the French institution paralyzed as no laws could be passed. This will bring hardships for civil servants. This deadlock might affect the nation until the 2027 Presidential Elections.
Possible Measures to Avoid a Parliamentary Deadlock
Measures will be hard to take by Macron due to this exceptionally blocked parliament. Thus, this might even bring us to a “technocratic” government, where the Prime Minister will be a non-party man from the bureaucracy, which could be similar to Italy’s Mario Draghi’s government during 2021-22. This approach will aim to manage the country impartially and maintain stability until a more permanent solution is found. However, it is unlikely that a majority can be found.
In extreme cases, we can even expect a constitutional reform or early presidential elections, but these seem exceptionally unlikely. Only time can now have answers for the French political disdain.
