France’s Messy Election Yielded No Clear Victor

• The populist-right gained seats in France’s parliamentary elections, but far fewer than expected

• The unexpected winners — a coalition of left-wing forces — do not have enough seats to govern

• Emmanuel Macron’s party will have a choice: work with the left, the right, or no one

The story

When Emmanuel Macron became President of France in 2017, he brought a new centrist party — En Marche, now called Renaissance. Macron and his party swept to victory in that year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, thanks to France’s election runoff system.

A runoff election consists of two rounds: top candidates from the first round advance to the second. As a centrist, Macron had an advantage. If he faced a right-wing candidate in the second round, left-leaning voters would support him. Conversely, right-leaning voters backed him if he faced a left-wing candidate.

The system gained him two solid presidential election victories and control of parliament for most of his presidency. But last week, it fell apart.

In snap elections, which Macron demanded after his party suffered an embarrassing defeat to the populist-right National Rally (RN) party in June’s European Parliamentary elections, Renaissance lost 86 seats, falling to second place.

That result was not particularly shocking. What shocked observers was that the populist-right — which led in polls and was expected to gain the most seats — ended up in third place, behind Macron’s party and first-place New Popular Front (NFP), a newly formed bloc of parties ranging from center-left to communist. The unexpected outcome was due to a pact between Macron’s Renaissance party and the NFP.

France parliamentarians are elected in districts across the country, like the United States House of Representatives. Macron and the leftist coalition agreed that all third-place candidates, whether centrists or leftists, would drop out — thereby uniting opposition to the right. This strategy ultimately denied the right victories in hundreds of seats.

The results

Macron’s party chose to side with leftists due to fears stemming from National Rally’s history. Its current leader, Marine Le Pen, succeeded her father, who was infamous for Holocaust denialism. The younger Le Pen has worked to reform the party’s image, but NR candidates frequently espouse anti-Semitic ideas; one was pictured in Nazi memorabilia.

No party garnered a majority; even first-place NFP fell 100 seats short. And without power to govern, the incumbent Prime Minister — Macron’s hand-picked Gabriel Attal — resigned, though Macron had asked him to stay until a new government could be formed.

The victorious left is demanding that the right form a government. The NFP stated that if Macron blocks the left from running parliament (the president appoints the Prime Minister) it will “amount to betrayal of our constitution and a coup against democracy, which we will strongly oppose.”

But the NFP does not have a majority — not close. They need support from Macron’s party to govern, while Macron has said he would not work with the far-left to form a government.

The right-wing is predictably disappointed with the results. After the election, Le Pen told the press, "The tide is rising. It did not rise high enough this time, but it continues to rise and, consequently, our victory has only been delayed.”

Beyond the headlines

Though this election was disappointing for the right, there are silver linings. For starters, RN actually won first place in the popular vote count, with over 37 percent, while the NFP garnered only 26 percent. Like America’s electoral college, popular vote does not matter — but considering the RN’s 17 percent share in 2022’s parliamentary elections, it is clearly on the upswing.

National Rally could still declare victory by multiplying seats it gained in Parliament. Meanwhile, the French left displayed its displeasure with election results by rioting in the streets. Police attempted to keep order in cities around the country, but rioters vandalized monuments and attacked officers with Molotov cocktails.