Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s broad left-wing NFP alliance is projected to win between 172 and 192 seats, trailed by the centrist Together (Ensemble) alliance, led by President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal Renaissance party, which is expected to take between 150 and 170 seats.
French MPs are elected from single-seat constituencies in a two-round vote. 289 seats are needed for a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.
In spite of the expectations based on polls, the far-right National Rally is projected by Ipsos to take between 132 and 152 seats, which nonetheless marks a historic win for the French far-right.
Exit polls conducted by other polling agencies suggest an even better result for the left and center.
During an election night rally following the announcement of the results, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the left-wing alliance, called upon other lawmakers and President Macron himself to respect the result of the vote and to shift the center of power away from the office of the president and toward the legislature.
While NFP falls well short of the majority, it is expected that the presidential centrist alliance will become its junior partner in the coalition government. This, however, would indeed create a situation in which the position of the prime minister is significantly elevated in a system that usually gives more power to the head of state.
Left on the rise
Reacting to the projected results of the elections, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the ‘France Unbowed’ party and the NFP alliance, said that “the will of the people must be strictly respected, no accommodation would be acceptable,” thereby hinting at the need for the power center in French politics to shift from the office of the president to the parliament.
“The defeat of the president and his coalition is clearly confirmed. The president must accept his defeat,” Mélenchon said.
Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister and one of the key figures in President Macron’s centrist camp, however, made a comment dampening the left-wing leader’s triumphalist mood.
“I note that today, no one can say they have won this legislative election, especially not
Monsieur Mélenchon,” he said.
Jordan Bardella, the formal head of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, which was widely expected to win the election, bitterly commented on the results saying that it deprived “millions of French people of the possibility of seeing their ideas enforced” and that the parliamentary makeup as it is, will never be able to provide a “viable future” for France.
It was the National Rally itself that called on President Macron for snap elections in the aftermath of the results of the European elections, a wish they saw
fulfilled on the election night soon after the announcement of the dissolution of parliament.
On Sunday, Bardella, the disappointed PM hopeful said: “Tonight, by deliberately trying to paralyze our institutions, Emmanuel Macron has not simply pushed the country toward uncertainty and instability, he has deprived the French people of any way to counteract against the everyday difficulties they face for many months to come,” railing about how in the aftermath of the Sunday vote “France is deprived of a majority, of a government to act, and therefore of a clear course to turn France around.”
