President Emmanuel Macron has averted the nightmare of a far-right party coming to power in France, but he still faces an unprecedented challenge to steer his country and the remainder of his presidency into an uncertain future.
Macron’s centrist forces performed stronger than expected in the legislative election, projected to come second behind a resurgent left, while the right-wing party, which won the first round on June 30, will finish third.
Yet, as he prepares to travel to the United States for the NATO summit in Washington, he faces a host of problems, including a left that now believes it has a mandate to govern, his own unpopularity, and open dissent among some of his most influential allies.
There is still palpable anger among Macron’s allies over his decision to hold snap legislative elections three years early, following his party’s defeat in EU parliamentary elections last month.
The president argued that “clarification” was needed in French politics.
“The decision to dissolve the National Assembly, which was supposed to be a moment of clarification, has instead led to uncertainty,” his former prime minister, Edouard Philippe, said in an unusually sharp dig on Sunday.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who had said he would resign on Monday but was willing to stay in office, expressed extraordinary dissent after the election, saying he “did not choose this dissolution”.
“Now the question is this”
The government’s strategy to contain the far-right ideology by bringing together center and left-wing parties to form a so-called Republican Front appears to be succeeding.
But the election will mark a turning point in Macron’s presidency, as he still has three years left in his term until 2027, and a highly mixed new parliament will inevitably play a much more important role.
On this occasion, Macron did not appear to be in any hurry to make any quick and dramatic decisions, one of his aides told the media that the President prefers to analyse the full consequences before drawing any conclusions.
The president is confident “and he is not going to settle for a small majority,” the aide said. “The question now is who will govern and who will have a majority.”
Philippe raised the possibility of a broad coalition that would include parties from the centre-right to the left, but would exclude the far-right National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).
So far there have been no fractures within the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP), even though the LFI’s flamboyant leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon remains a constant source of tension.
Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné, who leads Macron’s party, denied that Mélenchon “and some of his colleagues” would rule France.
But Laurent Wauquiez, a senior figure among traditional right-wing lawmakers who won his seat, ruled out entering any coalition with Macron.
‘The tide is rising’
Macron’s popularity has fallen so low that he sat out the final week of campaigning entirely, making no public comment even as the much more popular Attal took the lead.
He met well-wishers at La Touquet after voting on Sunday but did not repeat his policy of strolling around the fashionable Chanel resort wearing a bomber jacket and baseball cap as he did during the first phase on June 30, which some supporters saw as arrogant.
Political maneuvering will intensify under his leadership. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who won his seat, has made clear he plans to be a leading voice in the new parliament, possibly in alliance with Philippe’s faction.
Although the far-right party has suffered a defeat in these elections, three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said she believed it would not affect her ambition to win the Elysee Palace in 2027.
“The tide is rising. This time it hasn’t risen as high, but it’s rising and as a result our victory is only being delayed,” Le Pen said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
