In a sensational result that not even Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself could have imagined, his New Popular Front looks set to come first in the French elections. Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble party is forecast to be second forcing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), which led the first round, into third place. Mass tactical voting to stop the RN seems to have worked far better than anyone expected. Rather than simply deprive the RN of an overall majority, we have a hung parliament with no clear sense of what happens next. Macron must now negotiate with parties to try to form a coalition government.
'The will of the people must be strictly respected,' declared Mélenchon. 'The defeat of the President and his coalition is clearly confirmed. The President must bow down and accept his defeat. The Prime Minister must leave.' Gabriel Attal has, indeed, resigned as PM. Mélenchon also made it clear that he wants the fairly radical agenda of the Popular Front – formed less than three weeks ago by the main left-wing parties – to be implemented in its entirety.
Jordan Bardella, who had been favourite to be prime minister had RN won a majority,deploredthe tactical voting as ‘alliances of dishonour’ accompanied by a ‘disinformation campaign’. 'But he has doubled his parliamentary showing and declared it ‘the first steps towards a victory tomorrow,’ referring to the 2027 presidential election.
There were tactical voting pacts between centrist and left-wing parties in some 200 seats. This is a revival of the tactics used to stop Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, when he faced Jacques Chirac in the 2002 presidential elections. On the highest turnout for 40 years, the left-wing bloc is forecast to take between 180 and 205 seats in the National Assembly with Macron’s party 165 to 175 seats and RN between 130 and 145 seats.
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The Popular Front campaigned on a pledge to roll back many of Macron’s reforms. It wants to lower the retirement age to 60, bring back the old wealth tax, increase housing benefits and increase the minimum wage. Economists warned before the election that both the economic programmes of the Popular Front and the National Rally would be ‘catastrophic’ for the country. The Popular Front’s agenda has beencosted at€100 billion next year rising to €150 billion in 2027. The left also intends to release up to 16,000 inmates from prisons, fast-track migrants categorised as ‘climate refugees’ and restrict some police practices it considers too robust.
Other figures in the left-wing coalition quickly followed Melenchon in addressing the media – more moderate figures such as Olivier Faure of the Socialist Party and Marine Tondelier, the head of the Greens. But Melenchon has made no secret of his desire to be prime minister – as Marine Le Pen warned last week, in any coalition it is always the most fanatical who triumphs.
For the National Rally and its 10.6 million supporters who voted in last week’s first round there is little comfort in the fact the party will have as many as 60 more MPs in parliament than they did a month ago. In fact, they are now the single biggest party with more seats in parliament than Macron’s Renaissance or Melenchon’s la France Insoumise. But that means nothing when you have no allies to form coalitions.
This time last week the pundits talked cautiously of the party winning enough seats – 289 – for an absolute majority in parliament. But that was before Macron’s party allied with the left to form the ‘Republican Front’. Candidates from the left and the centre then dropped out of the second round, telling their voters to cast their ballots against the NR in a move known asdésistements– tactical withdrawals.
And it works. How democratic it is, is a question for another day. Jordan Bardella tried to put a brave face on the defeat when he addressed the party faithful, but dejection hung in the air. ‘I would like to thank the voters for the patriotic surge’, said Jordan Bardella. ‘Unfortunately, tonight the alliances of dishonour are depriving the French people of a policy of recovery,’ he said. ‘This evening, electoral agreements are throwing France into the arms of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's extreme left.’
