The Risky Politics of France’s Hung Parliament

Paris was in a state of jubilation on July 7. Quite literally, a roar of collective joy could be heard from the rooftops of the French capital when at 8 pm the left-wing Nouveau Front populaire (NFP, New Popular Front) was revealed to have won the largest number of seats in the National Assembly, defying expectations of an imminent majority for Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN, National Rally) in the lower house of parliament. At one New Popular Front watch party, a friend joked that this was perhaps our May 10, 1981: the day the socialist François Mitterrand was elected to the presidency, ending 23 years of conservative rule under the Fifth Republic.

In the days since, however, the pull of political gravity has re-exerted itself. If a dissolution of parliament would deliver political “clarity,” as French President Emmanuel Macron has argued for much of the last month, the result was anything but. Divided between three acrimonious blocs, the new National Assembly points above all to a period of extended instability and institutional paralysis. No force is strong enough to govern the country by itself, with the combined forces of a hypothetical opposition able to bring down whatever government emerges through a vote of no confidence.

For now, at least, the far-right RN has been kept at distance from actual governing power. The NFP, formed in the days after the surprise June 9 dissolution, allowed France’s left-wing parties to run a united campaign and magnify a broad platform for democratic reform. Finishing second in the June 30 first-round vote, the left’s alliance proved the leading competitor to the RN. And in a resurrection of the so-called “republican front,” over 200 centrist and left-wing candidates withdrew before the July 7 runoff in order to block the far-right ticket. Le Pen’s party therefore saw its seat share sink to third place. The RN and an allied faction of the old center-right Républicains will send 144 representatives to the new parliament, behind the second-place Macronist coalition Ensemble, at 168 MPs, and the NFP’s 182 deputies. Two hundred and eighty-nine votes are needed for an absolute majority.

As the leading bloc in the National Assembly, leaders of the NFP are claiming victory and demanding the right to form a minority government. Their common platform includes new taxation, investments in public services, an increase in the minimum wage, and a recognition of Palestinian statehood. Since Sunday, they have been racing to overcome tactical and personnel disagreements in a marathon of shuttle negotiations. But the alliance has yet to put forward a nominee for prime minister. The largest force in the alliance, La France Insoumise (LFI, France Unbowed), the party founded by veteran left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon, claims that any head of government must be from its ranks. This is brushing up against the NFP’s other forces, who are pushing for a consensus figure who could be less divisive beyond the alliance. Allusions to working within a national unity government alongside Macronists seem contained for now, however, with Socialist Party General Secretary Olivier Faure blocking moves that would unsettle the alliance from its right wing.

Mélenchon has demanded that Macron admit defeat and “bow down” to the NFP, while allied union leaders evoke the possibility of strikes and labor actions to increase the pressure on the president. But an outright left-wing government would be extremely weak—forced to spar in a parliament whose balance of power remains largely conservative. There’s one crucial point of agreement between Macronists and the forces to their right: Any left-wing government, and specifically one with ministers from La France Insoumise, would be welcomed with an immediate vote of no confidence. For the left, maintaining unity in a turbulent situation like this will be a priority in and of itself. Perhaps the best that can be expected is for the alliance to make a credible case for government, affirming that the NFP wants and intends to apply its program for “rupture.”

For now, the forces arrayed against them could be too strong. Since July 7, Macron has tried to nip in the bud any talk of left-wing government. Although parliamentary custom would have him turn to the largest group in the National Assembly for the selection of a prime minister and cabinet, the left’s lack of an absolute majority means that the president is not constitutionally bound to hand the keys of government to the NFP.

Macron has rejected incumbent Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s resignation. Biding his time, the president has chosen to wait until the parliamentary allegiances have settled; in the new legislature’s first session on July 17, the body is scheduled to elect its presiding leadership. Others suggest that the president could delay to beyond the Olympic Games or even to after the habitual August recess, which will in any case see intense negotiating.

“Nobody won this,” Macron wrote in a July 10 open letter, his first public statement since the runoff. “No single force alone holds a sufficient majority, and the blocs or coalitions that emerged in this election are all in the minority.” The president’s stated goal is to stitch together some sort of national unity government, a “plural” majority that would hypothetically bring together elements of the old center-left Parti Socialiste and the Républicains. “Only the republican forces represent an absolute majority,” Macron continued—implicitly drawing the line at the left-wing LFI and the RN.