Surprise first place for far left / green alliance in France - Macron's centrist alliance a close second - far right National Reform third - so far right won't be in government
or those afraid of a far right victory in France - it's a surprising first place for the left - green alliance with Macron second and the far right National front third in numbers of seats in the French parliament. With these results there is no way the far right will be involved in government.
Final results: Macron's coalition has 168 seats. left wing alliance 182. National Rally 143. LR conservatives 45 and Ind right 16. Others are smaller parties.
Text on graphic: Hard left, green, socialist and communits: 182
Macron’s centrists: 168
Center right: 60
Far right National Rally 143
289 for majority.
[various numbers for smaller groups]
For the colourblind friendly version see:
. French elections: Left projected to win most seats, ahead of Macron's coalition and far right
For reference this is the earlier exit poll:
The projected breakdown among the left-wing parties from the exit poll was 68-74 seats for LFI (Melanchon’s far left party), 63-69 for the Socialists, 32-36 for the Greens, and 10-12 to the Communists.
Based on those results, and given that many in Macron’s party don’t want to work with the LFI, they may need to involve the center right Republicans together with e.g. the socialists and the Greens would reach a majority.
Maybe a vote by vote approach.
You can track the results as they come in on the Le Monde page here:
. French elections: Left projected to win most seats, ahead of Macron's coalition and far right
It looks like Macron's "gamble" paid off for him.
It may be a difficult government to get together but from the results so far it's already clear that there is no way it involves the far right.
Somehow all the opinion polls got it wrong.
Projection from France’s state TV based on exit polls. See: French election results: Early projections show surprise win for left alliance
Compare the projected seats from The Economic times after the first round and taking account of the candidates that dropped out of three-way races.
Everyone was projecting National Rally to be the largest party with a small chance of the New Popular Front beating them, and they were wondering whether they could get the majority of seats, that seemed impossible.
Macron’s party was predicted to be far behind.
Not that they'd be beaten even by Macron's Ensemble.
What is more Macron can continue to keep to the same prime minister as before. The president can choose anyone as prime minister, and he can only be thrown out by a vote against him.
You don’t have a vote of confidence in the prime minister in French politics.
So Macron can keep governing with the same prime minister. There is no way the far left would combine a vote with the National Front to oppose Macron’s choice of prime minister.
It will be hard for Macron to pass some laws because of difficulty of the centrists combining with the left to pass legislation. But he can continue to govern far more easily than if it was a majority to the far right.
It seems that, when it came to the final choice, who the French people didn’t want the National Front to lead the government as prime minister.
Here is my previous article about the previous projections and about how the far right in Europe are focused on immigration and on economic matters and are very different from the far right in the USA: