Leftist alliance leads French election, no absolute majority, initial estimates show

France was on course for a hung parliament in Sunday’s election, with a leftist alliance unexpectedly taking the top spot ahead of the far right, in a major upset that was set to bar Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) from running the government.

The result would mark a huge setback for the far right, which opinion surveys ahead of the vote had projected would win comfortably, before the left and centrist alliances cooperated by pulling scores of candidates from three-way races to build a unified anti-RN vote.

The leftist alliance, which gathers the hard left, the Socialists and Greens, who have long been at odds with each other, was forecast to win between 172 and 215 seats out of 577, according to the pollsters’ projections.

These projections are usually reliable.

Cries of joy and tears of relief broke out at the leftist alliance’s gathering in Paris when the estimates were announced. At the Greens’ headquarters activists screamed in joy, embracing each other.

“I’m relieved. As a French-Moroccan, a doctor, an ecologist activist, what the far right was proposing to do as a government was craziness,” said 34-year-old Hafsah Hachad.

There was stunned silence, clenched jaws and tears at the RN party headquarters, as young party members checked their phones.

The result were a humiliation for Macron, whose centrist alliance, which he founded to underpin his first presidential run in 2017, was projected to be narrowly second with 150-180 seats.

The RN was seen getting 115 to 155 seats.
What next for Macron?


Macron stunned the country and angered many of his political allies and supporters when he called the snap election after a humbling by the RN in last month’s European parliamentary vote, hoping to wrong-foot his rivals in a legislative election.

Whatever the final result, his political agenda now appears dead, three years before the end of his presidency.

“Our country is going through a serious crisis, we are only a few hours away from a new order,” said engineer Pascal Cuzange who cast his vote for Macron’s alliance more in protest against the alternatives than in support for the president.

“There is a risk that the country becomes ungovernable.”

France’s business elite is also anxious about the risk of volatile politics and instability ahead.

“We are very concerned about what’s going to happen,” Ross McInnes, chairman of aerospace company Safran, told Reuters. “Whatever the political configuration that will come out of Sunday’s vote, we are probably at the end of a reform cycle that started ten years ago.”

An RN-led government would raise major questions over who really speaks for France in Europe and on the global stage, and over where the EU is headed given France’s powerful role in the bloc. EU laws would be almost certain to restrict its plans to crack down on immigration.

The RN pledges to reduce immigration, loosen legislation to expel illegal migrants and tighten rules around family reunification. On the economy, the RN has watered down some of its frontline policy pledges to shore up household spending and lower the retirement age, constrained by France’s ballooning budget deficit.

Bardella says the RN would decline to form a government if it doesn’t win a majority, although Le Pen has said it might try if it falls just short.

France is not used to building broad cross-party coalitions in the event of a hung parliament. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who looks likely to lose his job, is among a number of political leaders who have ruled such a scenario out. Another possibility is a caretaker government that manages day-to-day affairs but without a reform mandate.

French asset prices have risen on expectations the RN won’t win a majority, with banking shares up and the risk premium investors demand to hold French debt narrowing. Economists question whether the RN’s hefty spending plans are fully funded.

Pensioner Claude Lefloche said France’s future was at stake.

“France is sick, the economy is sick,” he said in the middle-class town of Conflans Sainte-Honorine, west of Paris. “My vote today will be an expression of dissatisfaction.”

With Reuters