French election: Left surge threatens Macron majority in France

Following a strong challenge from a coalition of left-wing parties in National Assembly elections, French President Emmanuel Macron faces losing his outright majority. In the first round of voting on Sunday, Mr. Macron’s Ensemble (Together) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-green coalition finished neck and neck.

Next week’s second round will be a challenge for the president to win 289 seats and preserve his majority. The turnout was an all-time low of 47.5 percent. Within half an hour of the initial projection, a sombre Jean-Luc Mélenchon claimed that his alliance had taken the lead: “The truth is that the presidential party is battered and lost at the end of the first round.”

He urged voters to show out in large numbers next Sunday “to definitively reject Mr Macron’s majority’s terrible ideas.” Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, won a second term in April, but he will struggle to push through changes without a majority in the Assembly. He wants to progressively raise the retirement age from 62 to 65, but Mr Mélenchon wants it to be lowered to 60.

Ensemble received 25.75 percent of the vote, just ahead of the left’s 25.66 percent, and was expected to control the National Assembly. Ensemble has 275 to 305 seats, according to TF1 pollster Ifop, with the green-left alliance having 175-205 seats. According to Ipsos for France Télévisions, Mr Macron’s alliance will win 255-295 seats in the lower house and 150-190 seats on the left.

The lowest turnout in contemporary French history. Many voters apparently decided to take advantage of the warm weather in France, which reached 27 degrees in Paris. However, the election campaign has so far been mainly dormant.

Mr Mélenchon has been an outlier, running a ferocious campaign since finishing third in the presidential race. With the motto “Mélenchon Prime Minister,” he has formed the Nupes alliance, which includes his own far-left party, France Unbowed, the Socialists, Communists, and Greens.Until 2002, the two elections were held separately, which meant that the government was sometimes led by a party other than the president’s, a practise known as cohabitation. If Mr Macron’s majority is lost, he may be forced to work with the left.

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