Free hand little joy to Macron

FRANCE: There was no public celebration from President Emmanuel Macron’s government yesterday as his party claimed a historic majority in the French legislature.

Macron’s Republic on the Move movement is on track to win about 350 seats in the 577-strong National Assembly, according to early results. That would be the biggest majority in 15 years.

But the number of voters turned off by the political process highlighted the urgency of the job facing the 39-year-old leader.

The turnout of about 44 per cent was the lowest for a French legislative election, and about 10 percentage points below the previous record, a reminder that almost half of the vote in April’s first round of the presidential election went to candidates opposed to the open borders and free markets of the European Union that Macron favours.

‘‘Abstentionism is never good for democracy,’’ Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said. ‘‘The government will consider it has an obligation to succeed. Now comes the time for action.’’

Macron’s majority gives him a free hand to push through his programme of liberalising France’s labour market and pushing for closer European integration. He has five years to persuade those disenchanted voters that his recipe can work for them rather than more radical alternatives.

His anti-euro antagonists, Marine Le Pen of the National Front and far-Left Jean-Luc Melenchon, both claimed seats for the first time, giving them a platform to keep pushing their more extreme approaches.

‘‘What’s at stake is much more than whether Macron can be reelected,’’ said Jean Garrigues, a professor of history at the University of Orleans.

‘‘The entire political establishment of France will live or die by this. If Macron doesn’t succeed, then the next political response to people’s anger will come from one of the extremes.’’ – Bloomberg