France elections: How a last-minute left-centre deal thwarted the French far right

Tactical withdrawals

Supporters of the left and centrist parties thronged the streets of Paris on Sunday night chanting “No pasarán! (They shall not pass)”, the anti-fascist slogan during the Spanish Civil War, to convey their determination to keep the far right out of power.

The NFP and centrists led by President Emmanuel Macron buried their differences to join hands during the second round of voting — 130 NFP candidates and 82 from Ensemble dropped out of the race to ensure the anti-RN vote did not split.

All 577 constituencies vote in round one of the election, and candidates who secure more than 50% of the voteshare, and a vote total greater than 25% of the strength of the electorate in a constituency, are directly elected. RN had the decisive edge after the first round on June 30, getting more than 300 seats by some projections.

But more than 500 seats were still up for grabs, 300 of which were three-way battles among Ensemble, the NFP and RN. Tactical withdrawals converted these contests into straight fights between a leftist/ centrist candidate and a far right one in round two, as voter turnout touched a four-decade high.

The emergence of the anti-right alliance was not unexpected.

Such “republican fronts” have emerged several times since 1955. Most recently in 2002, then incumbent President Jacques Chirac fought off a challenge from Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine Le Pen and leader of the far right National Front, the RN’s predecessor party, with support from a coalition that included some of Chirac’s worst detractors.

“Vote for the crook, not for the fascist,” went the popular slogan in 2002. This time, both Macron and left-wing leaders such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon have framed their entente as one aimed at avoiding the “worst-case scenario” and preserving the republic.

Uncertainty ahead

The NPF is about 100 seats short of the majority mark of 289, which foretells a phase of political uncertainty, avoiding which was Macron’s stated objective when he called snap elections in May.

“France is entering a long crisis full of uncertainties and political instability. Macron has lost his bet for clarification from the electorate,” Gérard Araud, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and a former ambassador of France to the United States, said.

The first task will be to pick a new Prime Minister. Macron on Monday asked incumbent Gabriel Attal, who belongs to the President’s Renaissance party, to stay in the post for the sake of “stability”. But Mélenchon has staked the left’s claim to prime ministership. “The President has the power and the duty to call the NPF to govern,” he said after Sunday’s result.

This is the first of many political questions that the centrists and leftists will have to negotiate. The success — or failure — of their cooperation will resonate across Europe. There are also divisions within the NPF — the hard left positions of Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI), which dominates the group, will make it difficult for the centrists to find common ground.

“Centre-left forces in the NPF alone won’t bring enough votes and heft to form a stable centrist coalition with Macron’s Ensemble and the centre-right Republicans, if the latter are even reliable partners for such a coalition,” Jörn Fleck, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, said.

What the results mean

For the left in France, the outcome is an endorsement of the strength of the public opinion against the populist right.

Macron and the centrists have avoided the worst-case scenario, but the election outcome has dealt a significant blow to Ensemble, which has lost 76 seats from its 2022 tally. Ahead of the presidential election of 2027, the centrists will have to make up for lost ground as a consolidation takes place at both ends of the political spectrum.

For RN, the results are likely a temporary setback. The party and its allies received 37% of the vote share in round two, the highest among all blocs, and gained 53 seats on their 2022 tally, turning in its best ever performance. Some 10 million French voters have supported the party’s anti-immigration, ultra-nationalist politics at the ballot box.

The factors underlying RN’s surge will not go away easily, and all signs point to Le Pen being one of the frontrunners to be President in 2027. “Our victory has been merely delayed,” she said on Sunday.