France has gone to the polls and delivered an electoral surprise: after what seemed like an imminent victory for the far-right National Rally party after winning the first round of the legislative elections a week ago, the electorate preferred the New Popular Front.
The left-wing alliance was formed after French President Emmanuel Macron called for early parliamentary elections on June 9 following the far-right’s victory in European elections that same day.
The New Popular Front (NFP) is made up of, among others, the Socialist Party, the Ecologists, the French Communist Party and La France Insoumise (La France Insoumise)., LFI).
The New Popular Front is projected to win around 182 seats, giving it a lead of at least 14 seats over the other coalitions.
Against all odds, RN fell from the clear first place obtained in the first round a week ago to third place in the second round.
Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party is expected to win around 143 seats in the assembly, behind the NFP and Ensemble, President Macron’s party, according to projections.
The effectiveness of the “cordon sanitaire”
The New Popular Front emerged just days after Macron announced the early elections.
Despite their marked differences on several issues and the fact that the confrontation between the political personalities who lead it is constant and public, the parties decided to ally themselves in this coalition of socialists, communists, environmentalists and left-wing radicals.
In addition, they had a common program written in record time.
In the first round of voting a week ago, the New Front had already obtained good results and came in second behind Le Pen’s party.
Now, the so-called “cordon sanitaire” that the left and the moderate Macronists imposed to stop the extreme right, supported these good results.
For this second round, what is known as the was articulated “republican front” coalition that the more traditional parties do to block the extreme right.
So it is not just a matter of creating the New Popular Front bloc, but of agreeing on united candidacies and withdrawing several centrist and left-wing candidates in order to unify the vote in all the constituencies of France.
In many of the constituencies where there were three candidates (one belonging to the extreme right and two to the opposing side), only two remained.
In this way, the votes were not dispersed.
Marine Le Pen has condemned these agreements, blaming them on those who “want to retain power against the will of the people.”
A tactic that, moreover, is not new.
In the past, it has been one of the most successful political weapons to curb the aspirations of the extreme right.
“In 2002, when Jean Marie Le Pen (Marine Le Pen’s father) reached the second round of the presidential elections against Jacques Chirac (centre-right), many people on the left voted for Chirac even though they did not agree with him,” Jean-Yves Camus told BBC Mundo journalist Fernanda Paúl.
“They didn’t like his policies but they still considered him a better alternative than Le Pen. And Chirac won with 82% of the votes,” he added.
Uncertainty
The NFP has promised repeal the pension and immigration reforms approved by the current governmentcreate a rescue agency for undocumented immigrants and facilitate visa applications.
He also wants to cap prices for basic goods to combat the cost of living crisis and raise the minimum wage.
They also want more investment in green energy.
But it is still unclear what will happen in France in the coming weeks.
Although the results are good for the New Popular Front, they did not obtain an absolute majority. That is, 289 seats out of 577 in parliament. This makes it difficult to elect a prime minister to head the government.
The choice of prime minister will therefore not be easy.
Furthermore, the left-wing sector has already announced that it will not count on Macron’s group to form a government.
“The president must call on the New Popular Front to govern,” France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon told supporters, insisting that Macron had to acknowledge that he and his coalition had lost.
Macron, for his part, said before the second round that he would not accept Melenchon as prime minister.
France could now have an Administration where cohabitation reignsthat is, when a president (in this case, Macron) is of a different political colour than the Government.
This already happened between 1997 and 2002, for example, with Jacques Chirac as president and the socialist Lionel Jospin as prime minister.
But despite the victory of the New Popular Front over Le Pen’s party, some analysts believe that Mélenchon’s radical left-wing discourse could send centrists towards President Macron’s party.
Mélenchon is recognised as a great speaker, but his speech has also been criticised for being polarising and for coinciding with some of the most populist ideas of the right.such as France leaving the European Union.
He is a known admirer of the policies of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, and has stayed out of the discussion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has some analysts on alert.
“We are in the lead, but we are facing a divided Assembly, so we are going to have to behave like adults,” warned MEP Raphaël Glucksmann on Sunday, from Plaza Pública, one of the formations in the NFP coalition.
“We will have to talk, discuss, we will have to dialogue”he emphasized.
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