The Ensemble won 246 seats, 43 fewer than needed for the majority. The consensus of the main French polling organizations was that Macron’s alliance would win between 255 and 295 of the 577 seats in the assembly. Therefore, the performance of the Ensemble was below the worst expectations. This means that France is now facing the prospect of weeks of messy negotiations to form a new coalition or minority government. There is even the possibility of a permanently “suspended” or excluded parliament – without a clear majority for any possible combination of forces in the new National Assembly. Ahead of Sunday’s election, senior government sources were confident that Macron could rule without a single 20-seat majority. But they were very worried that more than 20 seats could put Macron’s government in a zone of permanent turmoil, bargaining and possibly a stalemate. Senior French sources now argue that what fears the Elysium most is a parliament that is blocking or doing nothing at a time when rapid reactions to rapidly evolving economic and international crises are required. Macron will try to form a permanent or ad hoc coalition with the center-right, Les Républicains, who did better than expected, securing 64 seats and could bring the center-left alliance above the 289 seats required for an overall majority. . But that would mean the president would be pressured to move his government to the right, despite Macron’s supposedly turning slightly left in his second term after winning the presidency in April with the support of left-wing voters. The danger is that his new government will not be able to set any absolutely coherent lines. Macron may also be forced to appoint a new prime minister. The incumbent Élisabeth Borne, in power for only one month, narrowly won her election in Normandy. But she can now be seen as too left-wing and too inexperienced to hold a Macron and center-right coalition together – senior center-right politicians have already begun calling for her to leave. Finance Minister Bruno Lemerre, who is from the center-right, called on his former colleagues to “form a coalition” around Macron for the sake of stability and would be the leading candidate to become prime minister if Bourne were forced to step down. The first flare-up will be the crucial motion of confidence in the new government in the assembly later this month. Unless the center-right Les Républicains votes with Macron or abstains, the president will not have enough MPs to win this vote, which would effectively force Bourne, France’s second female prime minister, to step down. The center-right Les Républicains are deeply divided as a party, between the pro-European, moderate Macron-compatible MEPs and the radical, nationalist wing. While Macron may therefore be able to persuade some center-right MPs to support him for the next five years, not everyone is likely to do so. This is because the leadership of Les Républicains is going to change, which will probably shift the party to the right. In addition, the party’s hopes of uniting and rebuilding its power to meet a serious presidential challenge in 2027 could be jeopardized if it is too closely linked to Macron. Therefore, long and arduous negotiations seem inevitable. But the president and his inexperienced prime minister are unlikely to be able to rely on Républicains en bloc. Instead, they will hope to elect a handful of moderate, center-right MPs as well as one or two independents. Whatever happens, the new assembly will be filled with MPs from the far right and the radical left, deeply hostile to Macron, just two months after his re-election. There was an unexpectedly big breakthrough yesterday for Marin Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National, which won 89 seats. This is by far the largest far-right group in any French parliament since World War II. The Left-Green Alliance, Nupes, despite falling short of its ambition to win a majority and force Macron to nominate a left-wing prime minister, will remain the largest opposition bloc with 142 seats. While some left-wing leaders have suggested that Macron should succumb to the “people’s crisis”, work with them and move his government sharply to the left, this seems unlikely. What is likely is the prospect of a period of prolonged political instability, as war rages in Ukraine and there is a growing risk of economic recession at home. Macron had called on French voters to refrain from adding “internal uncertainty to international uncertainty”. Instead, they decided to punish the newly elected president for a lax and unregulated campaign and for the government’s alleged failure to come up with a clear plan to fight rising inflation. Gone are the days when a Macron “like Zeus” could impose his will through a submissive parliamentary majority. Macron will have to learn how to negotiate and how to compromise – none of which will come easily to him.
