The Legislative Assembly elections results of the second round in France were announced on 20 June 2022. The result shocked the re-elected President Emmanuel Macron, who was elected second time on 13 May.
The Macron’s coalition Ensemble! secured 246 seats in 577 members Legislative Assembly, below the majority mark of 289 elected members.
The far-right Le Pen’s party Rassemblement Nationale (RN) won 89 seats in Assembly. It is an exceptional performance of Le Pen’s Party in the Legislative election, in 1986 and 1988 party had secured 32 seats under the name of Front Nationale which was the highest performance to date.
The RN is now able to form a parliamentary group with its historic victory of 89 seats. Parliamentary groups are groups of members based on their political leanings, and through this, any political party can manage the agenda of the assembly. The parties needs 15 members to form a parliamentary group. The RN group could be the largest opposition group.
The left-leading coalition Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale (NUPES) obtained 142 seats in Assembly. The coalition has split on the issue of forming a parliamentary group, as every party wants to build their own group but ‘La France Insoumis’ wants to build a joint force.
Another conservative coalition of Les Républicains – Union des Démocrates et Indépendants (LR-UDI) secured fourth place and won 64 seats in Assembly. Although, in the 2017 elections, Les Républicains won 112 seats.
However, the current situation of the fragmented Assembly gives the opportunity to Les Républicains to leverage on policy matters in the Legislative Assembly, as Macron’s coalition would suffer from passing the bills.
This is the first time in Fifth Republic in France Politiques when any political party has not received majority numbers.
Therefore, the current Prime Minister Elisabeth Born gave her resignation to President Macron today, as a norm after electing a new legislative Assembly. But Macron did not accept her resignation. In France, the President appoints the Prime Minister among the members of the parliament, and the Prime Minister then choses its cabinet of ministers. “This situation is a risk for our country,” Prime Minister Born said. “We will work from tomorrow to build a majority for action.”
President Macron has already started the discussion from today with different political parties for forming a consensus on Majority building. President Emmanuel Macron has met with Olivier Faure, Head of the Socialist Party and Christian Jacob, President of Les Républicains(LR). But, the parties are not on the same page for forming a majority.
After the meeting first with Macron, President of Les Républicains, Christian Jacob told the media that “I repeated to the president that there was no question, for us, of entering into what could be a betrayal of our voters. We have campaigned in opposition, we remain in opposition in a determined but responsible way.” The discussions will continue on Wednesday also.
READ MORE- France Elections: Macron and Le Pen compete for the presidency
