MACRON LOSES STRONG MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT
In a serious blow to President Emmanuel Macron of France, his centrist coalition was projected to lose its strong majority in the lower house of Parliament on Sunday, after crucial elections that saw the far-right and an alliance of left-wing parties surge in seat numbers, leaving him with a slim lead and complicating his second term.
Projections based on preliminary vote counts gave Macron’s centrist coalition 205 to 250 seats in the 577seat National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament — more than any other political group but less than half of all seats.
For the first time in 20 years, a newly elected president appeared to have failed to muster an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
The results were a rebuke of Macron, who appeared disengaged in the campaign and more preoccupied by France’s diplomatic efforts to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“It’s not the result we were hoping for,” Gabriel Attal, Macron’s budget minister, told the TF1 television channel Sunday, as he acknowledged that his party and its allies would have “to find a stability” in Parliament if they wanted to push through legislation.
Several of Macron’s key allies appeared to have lost, including Richard Ferrand, president of the National Assembly, and Amélie de Montchalin, his minister for green transition — a stinging rebuke for the president, who had vowed that Cabinet ministers who failed to win a seat would have to resign.
The alliance of left-wing parties, known as the Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale, or NUPES, and led by leftist veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was expected to win 150 to 190 seats.