There were scenes of joy at the Place de la République in Paris when many thousands of people who were gathered to wait for the result of recent French election discovered that Marine Le Pen’s far-right coalition has not succeeded in taking control of the national assembly. Many outside the country also expressed a sense of relief that the far right would not sweep to power in France.
But as a result of the upheavals of the past month, French politics has changed dramatically. In justifying his decision to call early parliamentary elections after the far-right dominated in the European Union elections in early June, the president, Emmanuel Macron, said that he was seeking a clarification of the French political landscape.
His decision – and the resulting parliamentary election – have changed the face of the French national assembly and has confirmed the tripartite configuration of French political life. The newly elected national assembly will be composed by three main blocs: the left coalition New Popular Front (NFP), Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble and the far-right National Rally (RN) and its allies.
