French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on March 20.Ludovic Marin/The Associated Press
French President Emmanuel Macron is coming under growing pressure to address the instability caused by Sunday’s unexpected election result, which has exposed deep divisions across the country and has left the National Assembly deadlocked.
No party came close to winning the 289 seats needed for a majority in the assembly. Instead, the chamber will be dominated by three coalitions with roughly the same number of seats and very little in common.
The New Popular Front, a coalition of leftist parties, scored a surprising win Sunday by claiming 182 seats and beating back a challenge from the far-right National Rally (RN), which took 143 seats, fewer than many polls predicted. Mr. Macron’s ruling coalition, Ensemble, lost 82 seats and finished with 168.
Despite the uncertainty, the result was greeted with relief in capitals across Europe. Many Europeans feared a victory by the RN, which has pledged to slash immigration, cut France’s funding for the European Union and back away from military support for Ukraine.
Macron refuses French PM’s resignation after chaotic election results
French leftists thwart far right, edge out Macron’s Ensemble in unexpected election victory
“The worst is avoided – the RN cannot form a governing majority,” said Nils Schmid, a member of Germany’s Bundestag and the foreign policy spokesperson for that country’s Social Democratic Party.
“In Paris enthusiasm, in Moscow disappointment, in Kyiv relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X.
As President, Mr. Macron must appoint a prime minister who will be able to put together a stable government, a process that could take months.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal resigned Monday, but Mr. Macron asked him to stay on in a caretaker role until a new government is formed, which likely won’t be until after France hosts the Olympics this month and next.
Mr. Macron wasn’t commenting Monday, and his office simply said the President will wait until the new assembly is “structured” before making the “necessary decisions.”
Members of the New Popular Front argued Monday that since they won the most seats, they should be given a chance to form a government. The group plans to force Mr. Macron’s hand by nominating a candidate for prime minister this week.
The result “was clear and definitive,” said Manuel Bompard, one of the group’s co-ordinators. The coalition, he added, was preparing to govern and applying its own agenda.
But the coalition is a loose collection of Socialists, Greens, Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed, who aren’t used to working together. They only united a few weeks ago to stop the RN from taking power.
Some members want France Unbowed’s leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, to be prime minister. But he is a divisive figure who has been accused of stoking antisemitism through his support for Palestine. He also advocates big-spending policies that economists say would bankrupt the country.
Mr. Mélenchon would face stiff opposition in the National Assembly, even from some New Popular Front allies. Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the Greens, said Monday that she would not support him as prime minister and urged her colleagues to find a consensus choice.
The leftist coalition could opt for a more moderate candidate or even someone from outside politics, since Mr. Macron can appoint anyone to the post. But Mr. Mélenchon’s party won the most seats among the coalition’s members, putting it in a strong position to dictate who is nominated.
Although Mr. Macron’s Ensemble finished second, it has little support among the other parties and would find it difficult to form a government.
The RN will be in no mood to work with the other parties. Party president Jordan Bardella has accused Ensemble and the New Popular Front of forming an “unnatural alliance” during the campaign by strategically pulling candidates in more than 200 ridings to avoid splitting the vote and give the non-RN candidate a better chance at winning.
“Denying millions of French people the chance to see their hopes finally realized is not a viable path for our country,” Mr. Bardella said Monday.
Nonetheless, the RN had its best electoral result ever Sunday and will be even more motivated for the presidential campaign in 2027, when party stalwart Marine Le Pen will be the RN’s candidate. (The constitution bars Mr. Macron from seeking a third term.)
Any prolonged instability could play into the hands of the RN, said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy firm. “There is a very material and significant risk that over the medium term Le Pen could sweep to power, especially if the extremes are able to exploit the next two to three years and use that to their political advantage,” he said.
Mr. Rahman added that the election result also revealed the growing divide in France and how Mr. Macron’s attempt to build a centrist coalition has failed. Since he came to power in 2017, Mr. Rahman noted, the RN’s seat total has climbed from six to 143 seats. “Macron needs to do more to build a progressive, institutionalized centre to tackle the extremes. Otherwise, this is a crisis delayed, not averted.”