What you need to know about the French left alliance after its surprise election victory

The New Popular Front was a last-minute alliance, born out of perceived necessity, bringing together two moderate left-wing parties—the center-left Socialist Party and the Green Party—and two far-left movements—Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise and the Communist Party.

The alliance wants to lower the retirement age, which Macron raised last year, and significantly increase public spending on social welfare, environmental protection and health care.

Macron called early elections last month after his coalition was defeated by the National Rally in European parliamentary elections, betting that the possibility of a far-right government would push French voters to reaffirm his mandate.

Although he appeared to be right Sunday about how the public would react to the threat of the country’s first far-right government since World War II, he apparently underestimated the appeal of the left.

In the first round, the New Popular Front came in second with 28% of the vote, behind the National Rally (33%). Macron’s centrist alliance only won 21% of the vote.

French elections are decided at the district level. Thus, while the National Rally and the New Popular Front each had more than 30 candidates who won more than 50% of the vote and were elected to Parliament outright, other districts had to hold a second round between the top two or three candidates.

In constituencies where Marine Le Pen’s candidates narrowly won, the left-wing alliance and Macron’s centrist coalition joined forces to encourage weaker candidates to withdraw from the polls. It was mainly left-wing candidates, including Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise, who gave up on participating in the second round, according to the newspaper Le Monde.

Can the (left) center hold?

While the New Popular Front came out on top, it is far from securing a parliamentary majority. Unless the alliance’s moderate members can form a government with Macron’s centrist allies, France could be heading toward a political impasse just weeks before the Paris Olympics.

After the first screenings on Sunday, Mélenchon, the alliance’s best-known figure, called on Macron to invite the bloc to form a government.

“The president must bow and acknowledge this defeat without trying to get around it,” Mélenchon said. “No subterfuge, arrangement or combination would be acceptable” to prevent his coalition from gaining power, he added.

But even some members of the left-wing coalition consider Mélenchon too radical. Formed with the express purpose of defeating Le Pen, it remains to be seen whether its members can continue to paper over their differences and present a united front.

Even before the vote on Thursday, François Ruffin, one of the most charismatic figures on the left, broke with Mélenchon, calling him an “obstacle” and saying he would no longer align with the radical left in the National Assembly if he were re-elected.

Macron has said the far left is just as dangerous as the far right, particularly La France Insoumise, and claimed last month that the alliance includes parties that propagate anti-Semitism. Some voters told the Washington Post before the runoff that it was Macron’s alarmist rhetoric about the left that rallied them to the New Popular Front.

To form their alliance, the left-wing parties had to agree on one candidate per constituency. To the great displeasure of the moderate left, which includes the Socialist Party, which has long shaped French politics, Mélenchon’s party obtained a particularly high share of candidates.

Rick Noack and Annabelle Timsit contributed to this report.