FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron’s alliance has lost its parliamentary majority, following major gains made by both the left and far-right in Sunday’s Assembly elections.
Following the second round of voting, Macron’s Ensemble coalition emerged with 245 seats, significantly short of the 289 required for an absolute majority. Meanwhile, the newly formed platform of the united left Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale (NUPES) secured 141, with the far-right National Rally party taking 89.
Macron, who was re-elected as president in April after defeating National Rally’s Marine Le Pen, is now faced with the options of attempting to govern with a minority, attempting to form a new electoral coalition, cohabiting with a non-Ensemble prime minister and government, or potentially even calling for new elections.
Amongst the most prominent losses for Ensemble were health minister Brigitte Bourguignon, maritime minister Justine Benin and environment minister Amelie de Montchalin, all of whom failed to win seats and will now leave Macron’s administration.
NUPES, which was formed in the hope of making the left-wing erstwhile presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon prime minister, has now become the primary opposition, while National Rally have achieved the best legislative result for the far-right in French history.
Commenting in the aftermath, Alexis Corbiere, an MP from Mélenchon’s party, said that the result had “sunk” Macron’s planned flagship reform to raise the French retirement age to 65. The raft of newly elected NUPES representatives are expected to abstain from supporting Macron’s reforms, having campaigned on lowering the retirement age from 62 to 60, as well as reinstituting wealth taxes.
According to the French interior ministry, turnout for the assembly elections was low at only 53.77%. This was higher than the first round earlier this month and above the historic low of 2017, when 42% voted in the second round.
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