France: Emmanuel Macron asks Gabriel Attal to stay on as PM for time being amid political deadlock – as it happened

• On Sunday, a left-wing alliance emerged as the shock winner of France’s snap election.

• Today, Emmanuel Macron, the president, asked Gabriel Attal to stay on temporarily as French prime minister to maintain stability after the snap general election left the country facing a hung parliament and fraught negotiations to form a new government.

• Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the French Socialist party, said the left-green New Popular Front should present a candidate for prime minister within the week.

• Manuel Bompard, from the hard left France Unbowed, said Macron must invite someone from the New Popular Front to become prime minister.

• Figures on the French left began to outline the qualities they would like to see in a future prime minister. Marine Tondelier from the Ecologists said the prime minister must have an ability to build consensus and repair the country.

• Despite her party unexpectedly ending up in third place, the far right National Rally’s Marine Le Pen said the party’s progress in two years is incredible, arguing that victory is inevitable.

• The National Rally’s Jordan Bardella said he accepts his share of responsibility for yesterday’s results.

• Meanwhile, Bardella was selected as chair of the new Patriots for Europe group in the European parliament, a grouping which includes Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party and other far right parties.

• Valérie Hayer, a Macron ally and leader of the Renew Europe group, called the new far right grouping a “paper tiger” that “impresses no one.”

• Reaction in Germany amongst mainstream parties towards the election result in France has been fairly sombre, despite some feeling consoled that the outcome was not as bad as they had feared.

• Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has said that he is relieved by the French election results.

• Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, wrote that “the UK and France have said YES to progress and social advancement and NO to the rolling back of rights and freedoms. You don’t govern or do deals with the far right.”

• Italian opposition parties celebrated the surprise outcome of the French elections.

Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People’s party, has written that “far from clarifying the political situation, Macron plunged France into confusion, strengthening the extremes.”

The German politician added that he is “very worried about the far left & far right anti-EU rhetoric. We need a strong democratic force Les Républicains giving a real alternative to put France back on its feet.”

The French far right National Rally’s Jordan Bardella has been selected as the chair of the new Patriots for Europe group in the European parliament, a Hungarian government spokesperson said.

The first vice chair will be Kinga Gál from Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party.

Gérald Darmanin, the outgoing interior minister, has said that no one won the election and it is out of the question to govern or support a coalition which would have links with France Unbowed or the National Rally.

Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far-right National Rally, said he accepts his share of responsibility for yesterday’s results.

8 Jul 202409.25 EDT

Political paralysis looms in France after shock election result

Angelique Chrisafis

For more than 50 years, whenever France held a parliamentary election, voters would know the next morning which party would be in government and with what political agenda.

This time it is different. After Emmanuel Macron called a surprise snap election, and after the shortest campaign in modern history, French people delivered a spectacular rush of tactical voting to hold back a surge of far-right support. The resulting political landscape is divided and the outcome is complicated. Macron will take time to let the dust settle, his entourage has said.

An alliance of parties on the left, the New Popular Front, surprised pollsters by coming first with a strong result of 182 seats. But it fell significantly short of the absolute majority of 289 that would allow it to instantly form a government. This means the eurozone’s second largest economy, which is also the EU’s biggest military power, is entering a period of uncertainty with no clear roadmap, less than three weeks before it hosts the Olympic Games.

It could take weeks of dialogue and potential coalition-building to come up with a government and a prime minister. But France – with a powerful president and conflictual political system where parties reach vicious standoffs – does not have a recent tradition of building coalitions.

Read the full analysis here.

8 Jul 202409.17 EDT

Jon Henley

What is the New Popular Front, surprise winner of the French election?

The New Popular Front (NFP), a four-party left-green alliance, was the shock winner of Sunday’s French parliamentary election, returning 182 deputies to a 577-seat assembly now split between three large opposing blocs, none with a majority.

The largest is France Unbowed (LFI), led by the radical-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Founded in 2016, LFI is radical left and populist, believing that traditional parties and political organisations no longer serve democracy.

Second comes the Socialist party (PS), the mainstream centre-left party of François Mitterrand and François Hollande. Social democratic and pro-European, it was for decades the largest party of the French left, but scored less than 2% in the 2022 presidential election.

The French Green party (LE-EELV) is the latest iteration of a movement founded in 1984. It has had one spell in government, joining a leftwing alliance with the PS and Communists in 1997, when its then leader, Dominique Voynet, was environment minister.

The French Communist party (PCF), one of Europe’s oldest, was long the main force on the postwar French left and also served in Lionel Jospin’s PS-led government from 1997 to 2002. It still aims to “overcome” capitalism, but is pragmatic about doing it.

Read the full explainer here.

Valérie Hayer, a Macron ally and leader of the Renew Europe group, has called a new far right grouping in the European parliament a “paper tiger” that “impresses no one.”

The Patriots for Europe group includes Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party and France’s National Rally, among others.

The far right National Rally’s Marine Le Pen has thanked voters who supported her group.

“All my thanks to the ten million voters who made the RN the first party in terms of number of votes and number of deputies,” she wrote.

“The progress in two years is incredible and makes our short-term victory inevitable. It will invite us to also take stock of what can undoubtedly be improved in the future,” she added.

Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far right Vox, has congratulated the French National Rally on its “spectacular electoral progress.”

Marine Le Pen has been defeated by the left, but who will govern France?

Our panel responds.

Italian opposition parties have celebrated the surprise outcome of the French elections, a result that is expected to widen the friction among the far-right allies in Giorgia Meloni’s government which had been counting on a triumph by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left Democratic party, said the “extraordinary” leftwing victory proved that “the right can be beaten”.

Giuseppe Conte, who leads the Five Star Movement, said: “The great participation of the French people has rewarded the popular and progressive proposal of those who never had any doubt about peace, the defence of social rights and the protection of the most fragile.”

Meloni, who last week congratulated the National Rally for its performance in the first round of the election, has yet to comment publicly, but sources within her Brothers of Italy party told Corriere della Sera that Le Pen’s defeat demonstrated that the Italian government was “the only stable one in Europe”.

Le Pen’s loss was also a setback for her close ally Matteo Salvini, the Italian deputy prime minister who announced on Monday that his League party had joined Patriots for Europe in the European parliament, the new grouping formed by the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Until now, the League had been part of the Identity and Democracy group alongside the National Rally, which has also joined Orbán’s group.

“After a long period of work, the big group of patriots, which will be decisive to change the future of Europe, comes to life in Brussels today,” Salvini said on social media.

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has said that he is relieved by the French election results, Reuters reported.

“It would have been a major challenge if the French president had had to enter into a coalition with a right-wing populist party,” Scholz said.

“This has now been averted and we now hope that the president, but also the elected representatives, will succeed in constructively forming a government.”

Yonathan Arfi, president of the umbrella group representing French Jewish organisations, the Crif, has reiterated his position that the hard left France Unbowed (LFI) should not form part of a future government.

It is, he wrote, “the moment of truth for the republican left: no coalition is possible with those who have led an anti-Semitic campaign for months!” he wrote.

Many members of French Jewish communities, along with others across the political spectrum, have raised concerns about comments from leading members of France Unbowed which they described as anti-Semitic. Ahead of the election, the Crif published a list of quotes from the party’s leadership which it deemed problematic.

France Unbowed has repeatedly denied allegations that it is promoting anti-Semitism.

Emmanuel Macron has asked Gabriel Attal to stay on as prime minister, for the time being.

8 Jul 202406.16 EDT

Kate Connolly

With a view to Germany’s upcoming elections in September in three eastern states where the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) are leading in the polls, the main take away in Germany from the drama in neighbouring France is not to experiment with trying to push the electorate in a certain direction, as it could badly backfire and risks both national and European security as well as voters’ sanity, leaving the centre ground in tatters.

The opposition conservative Christian Democrats’ (CDU) foreign policy expert Armin Laschet said the election result presents an opportunity for the pro-European majority.

“Neither the right-wing extremists around Ms. Le Pen nor the anti-Semitic and anti-German left-wing radicals around Mélenchon have won, but there is a chance for a democratic and pro-European majority,” he said.

Looking ahead to the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg next month, he added:

This is also a lesson for us in the East German state elections. The fight for democracy and Europe is worthwhile.

Kevin Kühnert, general secretary of the SPD, also adopted a more optimistic tone, stating that the success of the left-wing electoral alliance should be celebrated.

“It’s a weight off many people’s hearts – including mine,” he said on German breakfast TV this morning.

The election results contained two messages, he said:

The majority of French people do not want to be governed by right-wing radicals. But the majority of French people also thought that the last few years under Macron had not offered opportunities for social justice.

8 Jul 202406.15 EDT

Kate Connolly

Reaction in Germany amongst mainstream parties towards the election result in France has been fairly sombre, despite some feeling consoled that the outcome was not as bad as they had feared.

Foreign policy makers in the three-way coalition of Olaf Scholz are focussing their concern on the emboldened fringes.

Michael Roth, of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), who is the chair of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, has said there’s no reason to breathe a sigh of relief.

“The march of right-wing nationalists and right-wing extremists has been stopped,” he said in an interview.

“This is a great achievement of the French. But it is still far too early to give the all-clear because the nationalist populists from the right and left are stronger than ever. The middle is weaker than ever. Emmanuel Macron has failed miserably with this.”

Roth said Macron’s experiment had intended to seize control from the left and right and bring it back to the centre, but had ended up doing the opposite.

“In fact, Macron has shredded the political centre,” he said.

Bruno Le Maire, the outgoing economy minister, has published a lengthy post welcoming the election loss of the far right but also warning of several risks ahead.

“The most immediate risk is a financial crisis and France’s economic decline,” he said.

“The second risk is an ideological fracture of the nation,” he added.

Le Maire called for like-minded groups to come together calling for forces that believe in the market economy, recovery of public finances, the energy transition and European project to disengage from partisan interests.

French football players have expressed their relief at the election’s outcome.

“Victory of the people,” wrote Aurélien Tchouaméni.

“Congratulations to all the French people who mobilised so that this beautiful country that is France does not find itself governed by the extreme right,” said Jules Kounde.