Against the backdrop of Lyon’s emblematic Bartholdi fountain, much of which was sculpted by the artist behind New York’s Statue of Liberty, the same word was on seemingly everyone’s lips on Monday after the French election result: soulagement, or relief.
“It’s great that the far right didn’t win,” said Stéphane, 47. But he, like everyone else the Guardian spoke to, was swift to add a caveat given the political uncertainty that now looms over the nation. “It’s going to be a mess. They’re not going to agree on a lot of things.”
On Sunday a broad leftwing alliance emerged as the biggest force in France’s parliament, thought it fell short of the 289 seats needed for an outright majority. The parliament was fractured into roughly three blocs: the leftwing New Popular Front with 182 seats, Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance with 163 seats; and the far-right, anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) and its allies with 143 seats.
After weeks of bracing for the RN to come out on top in the election, many welcomed the outcome. “It’s better than on Friday when we were imagining what this Monday morning was going to look like. This is much better,” said Thierry as he strolled through Lyon’s Place de Terreaux.
Walking alongside him, his friend Malika expressed disappointment, however, that the far-right party had improved from the 88 seats it held in the outgoing parliament to 126 this time.
She said politicians had to address the root causes of what she described as “the vote of defiance” cast across the country. “People are struggling with low wages and it’s a tough time for business owners and those who live in rural areas,” Malika said. “The government needs to heed this warning because there are indeed French people for whom things aren’t going well.”
This will not be easy: analysts have pointed to options that include the sometimes fractious leftwing alliance forming a minority government, or attempts to build a coalition among parties that have little in common.
Complicating matters is the scant precedent that exists for this kind of bridge-building politics in modern France. “We don’t have this kind of culture,” said Barthelemey, 36. “We have a culture of a leader who decides for others and the rest are in opposition, waiting for the next election to put forward or impose their ideas. So this is all unknown to us.”
Whether the threat of political paralysis will be enough for politicians to overcome the differences in personality and policy that led to the collapse of a previous pact between the four parties of the leftwing alliance remains to be seen.
Much of whether they can work together this time would come down to whether those on the left can keep the leader of France Unbowed, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, known for his domineering personality, in check, said Marie-Paule, 71, as she wandered through the city’s Croix-Rousse neighbourhood.
“You have to be vigilant,” she said. “Because Mélenchon isn’t easy to deal with – everyone knows it, and almost everyone says it.”
Mention of the election prompted wide smiles among half a dozen teenagers lounging in the shade in front of Lyon’s city hall after a night celebrating the result. “It restores your hope in France,” said Thelma, 18. “We saw people mobilise to defend their values.”
Now the challenge was for the left to make good on promises such as raising the minimum wage, said Cali, 17. “Some say that it’s not realistic,” she said. “But what I find not realistic is to vote for someone who has a programme based solely on the fears of the French.”
It was a reference to the more than 8 million people across the country who voted for the RN, the party launched in the early 1970s as the National Front and which once included in its ranks former members of a Waffen-SS military unit under Nazi command during the second world war.
Marine Le Pen cast the results as part of a “rising tide” for the far right, one that would eventually carry her party to power.
Mathis, 17, visiting Lyon from nearby Grenoble, said he hoped the election would instead force a reckoning with a party whose antisemitic, homophobic and racist views had long been viewed as a danger to democracy.
“It’s still a party, I’m sorry to say, that is based on Nazi views,” he said. “It’s intolerable. I’m hoping we’ll go back to a time when it’s a disgrace to vote RN.”
