French voters have cast their ballots once again in the final round of parliamentary elections. First projections say President Emmanuel Macron’s bloc has lost its parliamentary majority.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance is likely to fall short of an absolute majority in France’s parliamentary election, a projection announced shortly after polls closed on Sunday evening suggested.
France 2 TV said Macron’s Ensemble (Together) alliance could achieve 224 parliamentary seats, well short of the 289 seats needed for a majority.
Socialist veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon’s new leftist Nupes coalition was likely to achieve 149 seats, becoming the main opposition force.
Power-sharing or repeat elections?
If confirmed, the result would severely complicate the newly re-elected president’s second-term agenda.
Macron’s ability to pursue further reform of the euro zone’s second-biggest economy would hinge on his ability to rally moderates outside of his alliance behind his legislative agenda.
A hung parliament would open up a period of political uncertainty that would require a degree of power-sharing among parties not experienced in France in recent decades.
Alternatively, it would result in political paralysis and even possibly repeat elections.
In April, Macron defeated far-right candidate Marine Le Pen to be the first French president to win a second term since Jacques Chirac in 2001.
Le Pen is also looking at major gains for her National Rally party, which had just eight seats in the outgoing parliament.
Far-right and center-right make gains
The France 2 projection showed the far right is likely to see its biggest parliamentary success in decades — at 89 seats — eclipsing pre-vote predictions and possibly becoming the third power in parliament.
The conservative Les Republicains and allies could also get around 78 seats, which could potentially make them kingmakers.
Macron presides over a deeply disenchanted and divided country where support for populist parties on the right and left has surged due to the cost of living crisis among other issues.
Melenchon’s Nupes alliance campaigned on freezing the prices of essential goods, lowering the retirement age, capping inheritance and banning companies that pay dividends from firing workers.
Macron’s political allies cast Melenchon as a “sinister agitator” who would wreck France./AFP
