Left-green alliance denies Macron absolute parliamentary majority
Emmanuel Macron, the French President, lost his absolute parliamentary majority yesterday in a stinging blow that portends a difficult second term in office.
The poor results mean Macron will struggle to advance his national agenda, which includes an overhaul of the French pension system.
Early reports projected that Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance had won 224 seats in the lower parliament. This would be enough to keep an overall majority but was short of the 289 seats for the absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly, required to advance his reforms.
The disappointing results for Macron mark the first time in 20 years that a newly elected president has failed to win an absolute majority in parliament. One of his options to seize back power would be to form a coalition with another party, such as the centre-right Les Re´publicains, which was projected to take 78 seats.
The upset comes less than two months after Macron was re-elected president against the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally Party was projected to take 89 seats, 11 times more than the party won in 2017.
Macron’s greatest challenge this time around came from the newly formed left-green alliance, the New Popular, Environmental, and Social Union, or Nupes coalition.
Headed by Jean-luc Me´lenchon, who came in third place in April’s presidential elections, Nupes was projected to take 149 seats, an impressive showing for what is France’s first leftwing coalition since 1997.
Yesterday’s results have international implications as Macron, who has been a key negotiating figure between Ukraine and Russia, now faces increasing pressure to prioritise his domestic agenda over foreign policy.
Me´lenchon, an outspoken Eurosceptic who has promised to pull France out of Nato, has criticised Macron, whom he claims has put foreign policy ahead of his domestic agenda. — Telegraph Group Ltd