Many of France’s allies breathed a sigh of relief that the worst was over after Marine Le Pen’s right-wing party failed to win Sunday’s election, but said a chaotic coalition resulting from a shaky parliament could also cause headaches for Europe.
Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) was expected to top the polls, threatening to form France’s first far-right government since World War II and trigger an economic and foreign policy reversal in the euro zone’s second-largest economy.
In particular, Ukraine’s allies feared a Le Pen-led government could go soft on Moscow and cut military aid, which Kiev has relied on since the Russian invasion in 2022, although her party later said Russia was a threat.
The National Rally’s defeat signals at least a temporary resistance to the rise of the right in Europe, but it could also signal a period of instability with a new government in uneasy “cohabitation” with President Emmanuel Macron.
“Exuberance in Paris, disappointment in Moscow, relief in Kiev. There’s enough to be happy in Warsaw,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on XTV.
Macron had called a snap vote in an attempt to seize the initiative from Le Pen, but his own party fell behind a coalition of left-wing parties, which performed much better than expected to take first place.
Initial reactions from abroad expressed joy that the immediate threat from an extreme right-wing government had been averted.
In Germany, the far right has surged in popularity even during a cost-of-living crisis, said Nils Schmid, a foreign policy spokesman for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.
“The president is politically weakened, even if he remains in a central role in the unclear majority situation. Forming a government will be complicated,” Schmid told the Funke media group.
The party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez congratulated the left-wing coalition, called the New Popular Front, for a victory that “prevents the far right from reaching government”.
Nikos Androulakis, head of Greece’s socialist PASOK party, said the French people had “erected a bulwark against the far right, racism and intolerance and defended the eternal principles of the French Republic: liberty, equality and fraternity.”
Colombia’s left-wing radical President Gustavo Petro also congratulated France for keeping Le Pen out.
“There are battles that last only a few days but determine the fate of humanity. France has gone through one of these,” he said.
One EU official, who asked not to be named, said it was a “huge relief” but added that “what this will mean day-to-day for Europe remains to be seen.”
Deep divisions
The election left the French Parliament divided between three large groups – left-wing, centrist, and right-wing – which had different platforms and no tradition of working together.
The leftists want to impose price controls on essential commodities such as fuel and food, and raise the minimum wage and the salaries of public sector workers, while France’s budget deficit is already 5.5% of output, more than EU rules allow.
“Goodbye European deficit limit! (The government) will collapse in no time. Poor France. It can console itself with (Kylian) Mbappe,” Claudio Borghi, a senator from Italy’s right-wing League party, said, referring to the French soccer star.
Other hard-right politicians expressed dismay.
André Ventura, leader of Portugal’s right-wing party Chega, described the result as “a disaster for the economy, a tragedy for immigration and bad for the fight against corruption”.
A note from Capital Economics said France had avoided the “worst possible outcome” for investors, in which either Le Pen or the left would have won an absolute majority.
It said a fratricidal parliament would mean it would be difficult for any government to pass budget cuts needed for France to comply with EU budget rules.
“Meanwhile, the French government (and other governments) is increasingly likely to clash with the EU over fiscal policy, now that EU budget rules have been reintroduced,” it said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
