Far-right upset by left’s surprise victory in French elections

France has voted to reject the far right, with a left-wing coalition becoming the largest party in a parliament without an absolute majority.

On Sunday night, Marine Le Pen suffered a major blow: her far-right National Rally (RN) party failed to capitalize on its strong showing in the first round of voting in late June, with tactical voting causing the party to fall to third place. It was the RN’s significant gains in the recent European parliamentary elections that spooked centrist President Emmanuel Macron into calling early general elections.

Pollsters had widely expected the National Rally to become the largest party in France’s National Assembly, with most voters focused on whether the far-right could win the majority needed to form the country’s first such government since the Nazi occupation.

On the other hand, it is the left-wing New Popular Front, made up of the Socialists, the Greens, the Communists and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (LFI), which is expected to win the most seats. The left won 182 of the 577 seats in the chamber, Mr Macron’s centrist alliance 168 and Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and its allies 143, according to Interior Ministry data cited by The world the newspaper showed.

Voters on the left and centre were relieved by the expected victory of the left, which also dealt a heavy blow to Macron.

Exit polls have proven accurate in previous elections and if the results are confirmed on Monday, it will mean intense uncertainty for the European Union’s second-largest economy – with the risk of a serious political deadlock if no viable leadership group or coalition emerges in parliament.

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After the left’s predicted victory, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced that he would hand in his resignation to Mr Macron. The Elysée Palace said that the president himself would wait for Parliament to have a global vision of the situation before taking the next necessary decisions, but that he would “respect the choice of the French people”.

France appears to be in uncharted territory, with no group appearing to be able to come close to the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority.

The results mean Mr Macron is likely to face a parliament full of hostile MPs for the final three years of his presidency, with Mr Mélenchon saying immediately after the exit poll that Mr Macron should invite his coalition to form a government.

Calling the projections “an immense relief for a majority of the population of our country,” Mr. Mélenchon said: “The will of the people must be strictly respected (…) the defeat of the president and his coalition is clearly confirmed.”

But Mr Macron’s interior minister, Gérald Darminin, retorted that “no one can say that he won these legislative elections, and especially not Mr Mélenchon”.

The surprise results come after the New Popular Front struck a reluctant deal with Mr Macron’s centrist Ensemble group that saw them withdraw 132 and 83 candidates respectively this week in order to field a single challenger to the far-right candidates in this second and final round of voting.

The “republican front” is a mechanism historically used successfully against the far right under France’s two-round electoral system, which sees candidates who receive 12.5% ​​of the vote advance to the second round.

In a somber speech after polls closed, Le Pen’s protégé Jordan Bardella – who had ambitions to become prime minister – denounced the political manoeuvring that led the National Rally to fall far short of expectations.

“This evening, by deliberately taking responsibility for paralyzing our institutions, Emmanuel Macron (…) is consequently depriving the French of any response to their daily problems for many more months,” declared Mr. Bardella.

Mr Macron even surprised his own allies by calling early elections last month after the anti-immigration National Rally made huge gains in the European elections – the president taking a huge gamble that French voters would block the far right as they have in the past.

While Mr Macron appears to have succeeded in temporarily defusing the far-right threat, millions of voters on both the left and right in an increasingly polarised French political landscape likely seized his surprise decision as an opportunity to vent their anger and sideline the centrist president.

France now faces the prospect of weeks of political maneuvering to determine who will be prime minister and head the National Assembly. And Mr. Macron faces the prospect of leading the country alongside a prime minister opposed to most of his domestic policies.

Unlike other European countries more accustomed to coalition governments, France does not have a tradition of seeing politicians from rival political camps come together to form a functional majority.

Prolonged instability could increase suggestions from his opponents that Mr Macron should cut short his second and final term. The French constitution prevents him from dissolving parliament again in the next 12 months, making it difficult for him to provide greater clarity for France.

Mr Mélenchon’s partners adopted a conciliatory tone, with PS leader Raphaël Glucksmann acknowledging: “We are ahead, but we are in a divided Parliament… so we are going to have to behave like adults.”

“We will have to talk, discuss, dialogue… The balance of power has changed in Parliament… and there will be a fundamental change in political culture.”

Olivier Faure, first secretary of the PS, declared: “The RN has chosen to divide the French among themselves. We must rebuild the country on clear foundations and the New Popular Front must take the lead in this new chapter of our history.”