As Macron’s center-left party lost more than 40 seats below an absolute majority in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, it is urgently meeting with opposition leaders to determine how to build possible alliances. A historic rise by Marin Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigrant National Coalition has led it to become the largest opposition party. A left-wing coalition also made big gains, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left France Unbowed party, which with about 72 seats is now the third largest party in parliament. Others in the left-wing alliance include the Socialists and the Greens. Lepen, who came in second after Macron in the April presidential election after promising to cut VAT on fuel and ban the Muslim headscarf in all public places, triumphantly welcomed her new party group to the National Assembly on Wednesday. With 89 new members, it is the largest number of far-right members of the French parliament in modern history. “Millions of French people have been deprived of fair representation in parliament for decades, but today they are represented,” he said. Le Pen’s party historically did poorly in the parliamentary elections when the two rounds of voting did not show proportional representation, but this time they dispelled this trend. The new recruitment of far-right members of parliament included a significant number of local councilors who proved that the far right had successfully expanded to base level throughout France, beyond its heart in the post-industrial north-east and its stronghold in the south. There has been a wave for the far right in the southwest and in Gironde, in some areas traditionally held to the left. The party extended to Normandy, Burgundy, central France, the northeast and part of the Mediterranean coast. Le Pen claimed that her members of parliament included new profiles that better represented French society. Novice lawmakers for her party included three police officers, three former journalists and a caregiver for the elderly. A new far-right Normandy MP was Katiana Levavasser, a supermarket cleaner. The 52-year-old said she wanted to defend “the employment of unskilled French workers who, like me, wake up early in the morning to earn 11.75 euros an hour”. She described herself as living proof “that you can start with nothing and end up in parliament”. A 29-year-old delivery driver, Jorys Bovet, was elected far right in the Allier in central France. “I am from the real world. “I have been working since I was 16,” he told the local newspaper La Montagne. “I can see the cost of living crisis, everyone is taxed, people are full.” The far-right José Beaurain, 50, also from the working class, was the first blind member of parliament to enter parliament. He worked in a music store as a piano receiver and was a former French bodybuilding champion. He completely lost his sight in 2008 from a genetic condition, telling Le Parisien this week: “I was not elected for it, I did not talk about it in the press, but it is a great source of pride for me. “It proves that anyone, even with a disability, can have dreams and ambitions.” Le Pen’s party, which immediately began preparing for the next presidential election in five years at the end of Macron’s last term, hopes to use parliament as a means of gaining respect and publicity as other parties continue to accuse it of racism and anti-Muslim, saying that his anti-immigration manifesto to keep France for the French is unconstitutional. “We will be a stable opposition, but also a responsible opposition, with respect for the institutions and always constructive,” Le Pen said. The party, which is deeply indebted, is also going to win a big injection of funding from its new parliamentary group, which would help it repay an outstanding loan from a Russian bank, which was taken up for the 2014 election campaign. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST In a separate development on Wednesday, French prosecutors said they were investigating a junior minister following two allegations of rape against her. The allegations date back to when Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, Undersecretary of State for Development, French and International Cooperation, worked as a gynecologist, according to the French magazine Marianne. The Paris hospital service said it was unaware of any complaints against it. The Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment, the French news agency reported.
