Legislative elections: France now looking for ‘European-style’ coalition

4 months ago 25

The leftist bloc Nouveau Front populaire (NFP) won an unexpected victory in the second round of French parliamentary elections but the loose coalition of left-wing parties could be short-lived as a broad new alliance in the centre will be needed to form a new parliamentary majority.

The left-wing parties of the NFP came out on top in the legislative elections on Sunday (7 July) and are expected to win between 172 and 192 of the 577 members of the National Assembly, ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s list and the far-right Rassemblement national (RN).

Macron’s Ensemble coalition came second with 150-170 seats, followed by Marine Le Pen’s RN with 132-152 seats, and conservative Les Républicains (LR) with 57-67 seats.

This means that no political bloc will have an absolute majority and the political focus is already on building a large-scale coalition, bringing together the centre-left, the centre, and Conservatives, but without the far-left La France insoumise (LFI, The Left).

LFI’s leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared victory and tried to position himself as the next leader.

“The president of the Republic must bow down and admit this defeat without trying to get around it in any way,” he said a few minutes after the results were announced, refusing to “enter into negotiations” with Macron’s Renaissance party.

For several days now, however, the idea of a broad government alliance between part of the left, the centre, and some right-wing MPs has been gaining traction.

Political figures such as François Ruffin, who was re-elected as a deputy but has announced that he will no longer sit with LFI in the National Assembly, the Greens’ leader Marine Tondelier, and the Republican president of the Hauts-de-France regional council, Xavier Bertrand, have hinted that they are not entirely opposed to the idea.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said after the election that he could “never resolve to leave a political choice split into three blocs”, and stressed the need to “invent something big and useful”.

The fact remains, however, that broad coalitions have never been tried in France, unlike in the European Parliament, which relies on the traditional pro-European alliance of the centre-right, liberals, and the centre-left.

“In French politics, there’s something of the definitive, an absolute disqualification of others. And yet, the absolute enemy is the one fighting against democracy, the far right”, French Green David Cormand explained to Euractiv before the election.

Elsewhere in Europe, in Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, for example, coalition governments of more than two parties already exist.

“The culture of compromise is the norm in many European countries. In France, we’ve never succeeded. The left and the right have always been polarised,” French Renaissance (Renew) MEP Stéphanie Yon-Courtin told Euractiv.

Like their French counterparts, LFI lawmakers in the European Parliament tend to leave little room for compromise, preferring to go it alone so as “never to deviate” from their programme, LFI MEP Marina Mesure (GUE/NGL) told Euractiv.

From Brussels to Paris, the aim is to “stay in tune with what the public elected us to do. We’re not afraid of being in opposition”, she said.

Intense negotiations are set to begin in the next few hours and will determine whether the French National Assembly will be able to reach a broad consensus of the kind that makes the European Parliament work.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]