Leftwing alliance makes strong first-round showing in French election

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Red-Green Alliance made a strong showing in the first round of France’s legislative elections on Sunday, giving them a chance of challenging President Emmanuel Macron for control of the National Assembly after the final round of voting next weekend.

An early projection from Ifop-Fiducial for television stations TF1 and LCI after polling stations closed said Mélenchon’s alliance — the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (Nupes) — had secured an estimated 26.1 per cent of the votes cast, against 25.6 per cent for Macron’s Ensemble (Together) grouping.

Mélenchon’s success, however, is unlikely to translate into a simple majority in the 577-seat assembly, because moderate voters wary of his reputation as an extreme-left, Eurosceptic firebrand are expected to rally to Macron’s side in the second round on June 19.

According to early forecasts, Macron’s alliance will end up with between 275 and 310 seats, against 180-210 for Mélenchon’s. A party or alliance needs 289 seats for an outright majority.

Mélenchon called on voters to “surge” to the polls for next Sunday’s second round of voting “to definitively reject Mr Macron’s disastrous plans” and have their say after “30 years of neoliberalism”.

Each geographical constituency elects its own député, and in many, the voters’ choice will be narrowed from about a dozen candidates in the first round to just two in the second.

The results, seven weeks after Macron defeated far-right leader Marine Le Pen and convincingly won a second term as president, mark a dramatic comeback for the French left after five years in the political wilderness.

This unexpected return under the leadership of Mélenchon — a 70-year-old political veteran who came third in the presidential election just behind Le Pen — could make it hard for Macron to push ahead with the legislative agenda he will need to pursue his economic reforms.

In 2017, after sweeping aside his Socialist and centre-right rivals to win his first term as president, Macron saw his candidates win full control of the National Assembly in the legislative elections that followed.

This time, if his centrist Ensemble alliance does not secure a majority in the Assembly, the president will need to find support from other parties to pass laws, for example to extend the retirement age from 62 to 65 for his proposed reform of the pension system.

In the unlikely event that Mélenchon’s Nupes alliance wins a majority next week, Macron would remain in control of foreign policy and defence but would have to name a prime minister who has the support of more than half the assembly’s MPs and “cohabit” with a government hostile to his economic policies.

In common with citizens in other liberal democracies, including the US, the French have in recent years become increasingly disillusioned and turned to nationalist and populist politicians for solutions.

Early indications were that more than half of French voters did not bother to cast a ballot on Sunday, suggesting a record low turnout of about 47.5 per cent for this type of election.

French politics is now split into three broad camps, with Macron and his allies in the centre, Le Pen leading the anti-immigration nationalists on the far right, and Mélenchon at the head of his new left-green alliance.

Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party secured about 19 per cent of the votes on Sunday and is forecast to secure between 10 and 25 National Assembly seats, while the conservative Les Républicains is given between 40 and 60 seats in the early projection.

In the first round of the presidential election in April, nearly 60 per cent of voters chose a candidate from the extreme right or the extreme left.