French President Macron Loses Control of Parliament, Historic Gains for Far Right and Left Groups

Bridgette Randall
20 Jun, 2022
Frankfurt

French President Emanuel Macron's party and allies lost their absolute majority in the National Assembly after the second and final round of election.  

Grinding war in Ukraine, a sharp jump in food and energy prices and general voter discontent drove many to parties on the far right and far left. 

The coalition led by president Macron, Ensemble!, won 245 of 577 legislative seats, leading all other parties and coalitions, according to a report released by the French interior ministry . 

President Macron won a second term in April and will be the first president without a parliamentary majority since 2000 putting his legislative agenda of business and pension reforms in jeopardy. 

Voters showed little interest in the legislative election and about 53% abstained from voting in the second round. 

President Macron's centrist alliance enjoyed a substantial majority of 350 seats in 2017 but parties on the hard-let and the hard-right were successful in shrinking that to 245 in the latest election on June 19. 

The latest parliamentary election results are highly unusual in France where the seating president generally enjoys a majority in parliament and governs with a free hand. 

Macron is not known for sharing power or consulting with other parties as he governed top-down in the first term and largely used parliament as a president's rubber-stamp turning off voters.  

Moreover, Macron's first term was marred by several crises starting with the "yellow vest" protests in rural France and spreading nationwide against the fuel tax in 2018, followed by coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and Ukraine war in 2022. 

France holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months till the end of June and that also distracted him during the last week of election. 

Far-right National Party led by Marine Le Pen increased from a handful 8 seats to 89 and an alliance of leftist parties Nupes led by Jean-Luc Melenchon won 131 seats becoming the largest opposition party. 

Historic gains for the parties on the left and right are going to force Macron's second term with more participation from the parliament.