France refuses to give full powers to Macron
The peculiar left-wing extremist and "insubmissive" Jean-Luc Mélenchon will not be able to claim the post of prime minister, a right he had arrogated to himself before the second and final round of the French legislative elections. His New Popular Ecological and Social Union coalition, with 142 seats, including 79 for La France Insoumise (LFI), is the leading opposition force, but far from the 246 seats won by the Together coalition, supporting President Macron, which won 246 seats, far from the absolute majority it enjoyed in the last legislature, but still the leading political force in the National Assembly. Of these 246 Together deputies, 170 belong to La République en Marche (LRM), far fewer than the 262 that LRM had in the recently ended legislature.
With his characteristic dramatic language, Mélenchon called the results "a total defeat of the presidential party". These are the verbal excesses of election night, although it is true that the situation presents unprecedented features, so much so that a paralysis could occur that would lead to having to return to the polls in less than a year's time.
The reason is that Macron, after his comfortable victory in the presidential elections, considered that the time had come to reinforce with a strong majority in the National Assembly the whole battery of measures, more than necessary, essential, to modernise the country and shake off the pressure of the extreme left, trade unions and groups of all kinds, who have systematically boycotted any attempt to modify France's rigid system of protection and guarantees. In fact, Macron's flagship measure, delaying retirement to 65 years of age! will probably not be tackled in this legislature either.
Macron had asked for a comfortable majority for this and the other reforms, a kind of full powers that the citizens have evidently now denied him, making it virtually impossible to propose them with any chance of success. Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne herself described the situation as unprecedented, "which is a risk to our country". She promised that as of today, Macronism will try to build "a majority for action, because there is no alternative to guaranteeing our country stability and being able to continue with the necessary reforms".
To do so, Macron can only count on the 64 deputies that the traditional right, now called the Republicans (LR), have managed to keep, far from the hundred or so they had in the outgoing legislature, but enough to form an absolute majority over the 577 deputies of the National Assembly if they were added to Macronism's 246 deputies.
However, LR has also positioned itself in the opposition since election night, so it is to be expected that it will sell its presumed support at a high price. Such support may not be sufficient in the case of major reforms, for example the reform of the retirement age and the simplification of personal and social categories of access to it. These are so deeply rooted in the social fabric that an alliance between Macronists and Republicans would not be enough.
If there is a clear winner of these French legislative elections, it seems indisputable that it was Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN), which is claiming the leadership of the opposition for its group. Indeed, as a party, its 89 seats outnumber the 79 of Mélenchon's LFI and the 64 of the LR.
For Le Pen, this result gives her a taste of revenge. Given France's two-round majority electoral system, in the past the RN could not even win the 15 seats needed to form a parliamentary group, which was a clear mismatch between the large number of votes Le Pen won at the ballot box and the meagre representation they obtained in the hemicycle. This time it is different, and Le Pen has not only overcome an electoral system that particularly punished her, but has also eliminated in the process the competitors of Reconquista, Éric Zemmour's party, who were competing with her in the ultra-nationalist space.
Le Pen has promised a tough opposition, at least as tough from the other side as that of Mélenchon's supporters. Neither of them seems to leave any room for a pact with Macronism, hence the risk of paralysis that was evoked both in the Elysée Palace and in the Matignon Palace, the seat of the prime minister.
These elections have also brought us an updated version of the fact that the political seat is for those who work for it. Macron had warned his ministers and secretaries of state that those who did not win their seats would have to leave the government. Most have complied, starting with the prime minister, Elisabeth Borne. Some, such as Olivier Véran, Minister for Relations with Parliament, Olivier Dussopt, Minister for Labour, and Clément Beaune, Minister for Europe, beat their opponents by very narrow margins.
On the other hand, Brigitte Bourguignon, Minister for Health, Amélie de Montchalin, Minister for Ecological Transition and Justine Benin, Minister of State for the Sea, did not retain their seats and will therefore no longer be able to sit at the Council of Ministers' table. Two other Macronist heavyweights, Christophe Castaner, president of the LRM parliamentary group in the National Assembly, and Richard Ferrand, hitherto president of France's lower house, also suffered severe defeats