The decision by French president Emmanuel Macron to dissolve parliament following the far-right’s historic surge in the European elections has thrown the country’s politics into disarray.
With the two rounds of the next parliamentary elections now slated for June 30 and July 7, the European elections appear to indicate that the trend of a broad three-way division of French politics has continued: at 31.37% of the European ballot for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, and 5.47% for Reconquest, the party founded and led by nationalist firebrand Eric Zemmour, the far-right was in front. Next came the freshly minted left-wing coalition, the Popular Front, which includes the left’s four main parties, Socialist Party (PS) (13.83%), France Unbowed (LFI) (9.89%), the Greens (EÉLV) (5.5%) and Communists (PCF) (2.36%); altogether, this accounted for almost 30% of the vote. The government’s centrist list, Renaissance, achieved 14.60%, with the mainstream conservatives, the Republicans, clinging to 7.25% of the vote.
This fragmented landscape makes it likely Macron’s government will lose its majority in the national assembly and be forced to cohabit with a prime minister from another party. How would such arrangements, as set out by the country’s 1958 constitution, work in practice?
