President Emmanuel Macron is on track to lose his absolute majority in the National Assembly and control of his reform agenda, after early projections from four pollsters showed Sunday’s election yielded a parliament without a majority.
Macron’s centrist alliance would end up with the most seats, polls showed, followed by the leftist Nupes bloc led by far-left veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
But the threshold for an absolute majority is 289 seats in the lower house, and projections from the four pollsters showed macron and his allies would fall short of that threshold.
If confirmed, a parliament without an absolute majority would open a period of political uncertainty that would require a degree of power-sharing among parties with no experience in France in recent decades, or a political paralysis and even possibly the repetition of elections.
Rachida Dati of the conservative Republicans called the results “a bitter failure” for Macron and said he should appoint a new prime minister.
“It’s Emmanuel Macron’s arrogance, his contempt for the French… which made him a minority president,” said Jordan Bardella of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.
In Macron’s camp, Gabriel Attal told TF1 TV that “no one has won,” while government spokeswoman Olivia Grégoire said the results were disappointing, but noted that the alliance is still shaping up to be the largest group in parliament.
Separate forecasts from pollster Ifop, OpinionWay, Elabe and Ipsos showed Macron’s Ensemble alliance winning between 200 and 260 seats and Nupes secured between 149 and 200.
Macron’s ability to seek further reform of the euro zone’s second-largest economy would depend on his ability to rally moderates outside his alliance to the right and left behind his legislative agenda.
In another major shift for French politics, Le Pen’s party could win up to 100 seats, according to initial projections, its highest figure on record.
Macron, 44, in April became the first French president in two decades to win a second term, but presides over a deeply disenchanted and divided country where support for populist parties on the right and left has surged.
Follow us on
