Jean-Luc Melenchon’s Red-Green Alliance showed a strong performance in the first round of parliamentary elections in France on Sunday, giving him a chance to challenge President Emmanuel Macron for control of the National Assembly in the last round of voting next weekend.
After most of the ballots were counted, the results showed that Melenchon’s alliance – the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (Nupes) – and Macron’s centrist ensemble (Together) are the main winners and will be the two largest groups in the assembly.
However, Melenchon’s success is unlikely to win a majority in the 577-seat assembly, as moderate voters who fear his reputation as a far-left, Eurosceptic torch are expected to rally on Macron’s side in the second round of 19 June.
According to early forecasts by sociologists, Macron’s group will retain control and will eventually have between 275 and 310 seats, up from 180-210 for Melenchon. A party or union needs 289 seats for an absolute majority.
Melenchon called on voters to go to the polls next Sunday, “to reject Macron’s disastrous plans once and for all” and to express their opinion after “30 years of neoliberalism”.
Elizabeth Bourne, Macron’s prime minister, criticized the political “extremes” opposed to her government, saying: “We are the only political force that can win a majority in the National Assembly. . . Given the world situation and the war on Europe’s gates, we cannot take the risk of instability.
Each constituency elects its own MP, and in many cases the choice of voters is narrowed from about a dozen candidates in the first round to just two in the second. In most cases, the runoff will be between Macron’s candidate and Melenchon’s.
Ballots from the first round of the French parliamentary elections are empty for counting in Strasbourg on Sunday © AP
The results, seven weeks after Macron defeated far-right leader Marine Le Pen and convincingly won a second term as president, mark a dramatic return for the French left after five years in the political desert.
Under Melenchon, a 70-year-old political veteran who finished third in the presidential election just after Le Pen and previously signaled his retirement, the left will at least be able to mount a vocal opposition in parliament against Macron’s legislative agenda. while striving to continue its economic reforms.
In 2017, after pushing aside his Socialists and center-right rivals to win his first term as president, Macron saw his candidates gain full control of the National Assembly in subsequent legislative elections.
This time, if his centrist alliance Alsemble does not secure a majority in the Assembly, the president will have to find support from other parties such as the conservative Les Républicains to pass laws, such as extending the retirement age from 62 to 65 for his proposed reform. the pension system.
In the unlikely event that Melenchon Nupes’ alliance wins a majority next week, Macron will remain in control of foreign policy and defense, but will have to nominate a prime minister who has the support of more than half of the assembly and “coexists” with the government. , hostile to his economic policies.
Like citizens in other liberal democracies, including the United States, the French have become increasingly frustrated in recent years, turning to nationalist and populist politicians for solutions.
Partial results from the interior ministry show that more than half of French voters did not bother to vote on Sunday, suggesting a record low turnout of around 47 per cent for this type of election.
French politics is now divided into three broad camps, with Macron and his allies at the center, Le Pen leading anti-immigration nationalists on the far right and Melanchon leading his new left-green alliance, which includes his own La France Insoumise (France Unconquered) and the socialist and communist parties.
Le Pen’s National Reunification Party received about 20 percent of the vote on Sunday and is expected to win between 10 and 25 seats in the National Assembly, while the “Republican Republics” on the right are given between 40 and 60 seats in the early forecast.
Among those who failed to qualify for Sunday’s election was Eric Zemmour, a far-right TV talk show star who has already lost the presidential race and failed to replace Le Pen as leader of the French far right.
In the first round of the April presidential election, nearly 60 percent of French voters chose a far-right or far-left candidate.
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