French election latest: French PM offers to resign – as party leaders digest ‘astonishing’ exit poll | World News

By Adam Parsons, European Correspondent

It is a surprising result, perhaps the biggest surprise in the history of French elections.

No one saw it coming: not the pollsters, not the public, not the politicians.

France will not have a far-right government, but this answer, this fact alone, does not cover another crucial point.

The country is still plunged into uncertainty.

A divided parliament

The French parliament will be divided between three factions.

The largest coalition, although far from obtaining an absolute majority, will be the left-wing one called the New Popular Front.

The centrist group, united behind President Emmanuel Macron, defied all predictions by coming second.

And the National Rally, the party that everyone predicted would be the biggest, stumbled into third place.

There is no affection between these groups.

In fact, there is a general aversion in all directions, which makes it difficult to assess the prospect of coalitions.

Who could possibly be Prime Minister?

Macron has long despised Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the largest party in the left-wing coalition, as he despises Marine Le Pen.

The rest of the left-wing coalition turned its back on Mélenchon after his inflammatory comments about Israel and Gaza, but they also need his support.

So when Mélenchon now demands that his group head the government, the task is far from simple: his coalition partners, for example, will not accept him as prime minister. Who would then get this post? Nobody knows.

All the left-wing parties are united by their vehement opposition to the RN, so much so that they have joined the centrist coalition in a tactical plan to thwart it.

France has turned against the RN. Perhaps, and perhaps this is precisely what Macron had planned: to give the French the vision of an RN government and to believe that they would be outraged by this idea.

But it is a tumultuous time, as public interest reflects. Turnout in these elections was the highest in decades.

It is difficult to predict what will happen next. France, one of the richest and most influential nations in the world, is in the midst of a transformation.