Legislative elections in France: defeated faces at Macron, celebration at Mélenchon and Le Pen

President Emmanuel Macron suffered a major disavowal Sunday in the second round of France's legislative elections, losing his absolute majority in the National Assembly which will complicate his ability to govern in an election marked by strong pushes from the far right and the left. Here are the final results.

By obtaining only a small relative majority of seats in the National Assembly on Sunday night (245 seats), the Macronie is faced with a disaster scenario, forced to permanently seek alliances during the legislature that is opening.

 

Far from the absolute majority (289 seats) that some people close to Emmanuel Macron were still hoping to obtain in recent days, La République en marche and its allies MoDem and Horizons have recorded an unprecedented counter-performance: the smallest majority of the Fifth Republic, so small that it opens institutional questions…

 

The French president, re-elected in April for a second term, will have to find alliances to implement his reform program over the next five years in the face of opponents determined not to give him any favours.

 

The complete results were published on the website of the French Ministry of the Interior at 0:50 am on Monday.

The presidential majority (Ensemble!) won 245 seats (44 seats short of the absolute majority of 289 seats). In detail, within the Ensemble! coalition, 170 deputies are from Renaissance (ex-LREM), 46 from MoDem, 26 from Horizons, and 3 from the Radical Party. In 2017, La République en Marche had obtained an absolute majority with 308 seats.

 

For its part, the left-wing alliance Nupes led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon becomes the first opposition group in the Assembly, replacing the right, with 131 seats, to which must be added part of the 22 left-wing divers (in Overseas France).

 

Marine Le Pen's far-right party Rassemblement national (RN) is the third largest force in the Assembly and, more importantly, the second largest party in France with 89 deputies, which represents a considerable breakthrough.

The Republicans (LR) won 61 seats and its ally UDI three, compared to a hundred in the previous legislature.

 

Unsurprisingly, this election, the fourth in two months after the presidential election, was shunned by the French while part of the country was suffering from an unprecedented heat wave. The abstention rate reached 53.77%, according to the Ministry of the Interior.