The Irish proverb, hoping to recoup is what ruins the gambler, proved once again true on the weekend.
President Macron’s reckless gamble not only failed to achieve the clarity on support for his government or to strengthen his position, but very likely pushed France into chaos for at least a year (before new elections can be scheduled).
The final results are likely to arrive only in a few days, but the outcome won’t change much: the snap elections left France with a fragmented parliament, where none of the three biggest parties can govern alone.
The freshly founded leftist Nouveau Front Populaire won a surprise 182 seats and with that, became the strongest fraction in the National Assembly. President Macron’s Ensemble grouping will have 168 seats, while the far-right groups allied with National Rally will have 143 seats (a big jump compared to their previous 88 seats, but still far from the 289 seats needed for majority).
The latter result was probably almost as surprising as the sudden surge of the left, especially as most polls predicted a massive win, some projections even put the far-right bloc (National Rally and the smaller Reconquete) in lead position for 362 seats.
But again, the same thing happened, as during the previous (three) presidential elections. Just before a far-right candidate could have won, French voters balked and voted for the centre/left instead. Voter turnout was the highest in a parliamentary election for more than 20 years, and experts agree that the biggest motivation was to prevent the far-right from governing.
Marine Le Pen, trying to hide her dismay, only declared that victory had “merely been delayed”.
Jordan Bardella was also visibly disappointed, claiming that his party’s defeat was only “made possible by orchestrated tactical voting”, an “alliance of dishonour”, that Macron used to throw France “into the arms of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s extreme left”.
Applying the ancient principle, my enemy’s enemy is my friend, President Macron’s Ensemble and the Nouveau Front Populaire mutually pulled back candidates (a combined 200 of them) from the race in an effort to block the far right.
A short-lived victory in a battle, but the costs are unpredictable.
French voters might have feared a far-right government enough to vote against it, but it doesn’t mean that their dissatisfaction just disappeared or the problems they were worried about were solved.
Even with all the pre-election manoeuvring, the Ensemble lost roughly a hundred seats compared to its previous position, while the far-right almost doubled its seats.
The winner Nouveau Front Populaire can’t govern on its own.
The likelihood that they can form a working coalition with Ensemble is basically zero, given that their main message was heavily anti-Macron, attacking the president’s elitist politics (among others). Macron’s centrist alliance hasn’t been able to form a majority for two years even before.
Probably not much higher are the leftist parties’ chances to work together in the long run. The last time they tried it (2022, under the name Nupes), their cooperation collapsed in the matter of months, as personal and political differences pushed them apart. The left-wing coalition (Socialists, Greens, Communists and the far-left France Unbowed), has been known to be deeply divided.
France will have a National Assembly with roughly one third-one third on the left, centre and right. Not as fragmented as the Dutch parliament, but close.
The Nouveau Front Populaire has already promised to name a candidate for prime minister later this week, “either by consensus or a vote”, as Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure declared. The list of possible candidates is yet unknown, but as France Unbowed is the largest fraction within the coalition, it is likely that they will want highly divisive Jean-Luc Melenchon to lead the new government.
But as it is unclear how a new government could be formed with no absolute majority (or feasible coalition plans) the circus might drag on for months.