Explained: Macron’s party loses majority in French Parliament, what happens now?

But the results have thrown up a hung assembly, in which a coalition of leftist parties called NUPES, and UDC, a coalition of right-wing parties, have both made prominent gains. The results have made the way forward for politics in the country uncertain at a time when Europe faces serious issues of inflation and energy security amid the war in Ukraine, and a re-thinking of the EU’s role in Europe.

The elections

Presidential and legislative elections are held separately in France. The latter are held to elect members of the National Assembly, the country’s 577-member lower house of Parliament. The elections are direct, meaning people in each constituency vote to directly elect their representatives.

The presidential elections too are direct; the reason why the change in power dynamics so soon after Macron’s re-election in April has surprised some. The French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called the results a “democratic shock”.

Although Macron’s coalition is still the biggest in the National Assembly with 245 seats, it is way short of the majority mark of 289. This means he will need the support of other alliances and parties to pass his policies. The government realises this — Le Maire said if support from others was lacking, “this would block our capacity to reform and protect the French”. Some have suggested that if Macron finds it impossible to pursue his agenda, he may call snap elections.

In the two months since Macron’s election, rising inflation has been a major concern for voters, but voter apathy and abstention are noticeable too. The voting percentage was only around 46%, the BBC reported, which means more than half the voters did not exercise their franchise.

The way forward

Five major alliances, including the President’s own, are a prominent part of the legislative mix. The biggest alliance is led by the centre-right La République En Marche! (LREM) party, which Macron founded in 2016. Proximity with the EU and economic liberalism are part of its core agenda.

The second biggest alliance is the left-wing New Ecologic and Social People’s Union (NUPES) led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a strong critic of the President. He is unlikely to support Macron’s liberal economic policy — so, while Macron wants to raise the retirement age to 65 years from the present 62, Mélenchon wants to lower it to 60.
Reports in the European media suggest Macron is most likely to reach out to the Les Republicans (LR), another centre-right party with whom LREM has the most in common.

Marine Le Pen, who lost to Macron in the presidential elections in April, is also seeing success, with her party sending 89 candidates – the most ever in its 50-year history – to the lower house of Parliament.

Elections and Europe

Mélenchon’s alliance is now the second biggest bloc in Parliament, and he has said in the past that given the size of France’s economy, it could negotiate successfully to not follow EU orders if its interests were compromised, Reuters reported.

“France is influential in Europe. It’s 18% of the European economy. It’s not the situation of the Greece of (Alexis) Tsipras that negotiated with 2% of the European economy,” Adrien Quatennens, a senior member of Mélenchon’s party, told Franceinfo radio. Tsipras, now leader of opposition in Greece, was Prime Minister from 2015 to 2019, and signed a bailout deal with lenders that involved harsh austerity measures.

There may not be any significant changes in the position taken by France with regard to the war in Ukraine, as Macron, Le Pen, and Mélenchon, all have expressed reservations about the US-led Western coalition’s strategy of isolating Russia.

However, the presence of emboldened centrist, hard left, and hard right members in the lower house would mean Macron will face difficulty in building consensus on a range of divisive issues.

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