Opinion
Mint Quick Edit | Did Macron get his French election gamble right?
Summary
- Polls in France threw up a hung parliament with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party finishing third despite its strong showing earlier. President Macron, who’d called snap polls in response to the NR’s rise, may have proven a point. Expect instability, though.
A week is a long time in politics. Look at France’s parliamentary poll results. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (NR) party, whose big success in European elections had prompted President Emmanuel Macron to call snap domestic elections, finished in third position, behind a leftist coalition called New Popular Front that won the most seats and Macron’s own centrist party, which came second.
None of them got a majority, although after the first round of France’s two-round polls, the NR seemed set to surge to the top. Macron’s move had seemed like a reckless gamble, apparently aimed at stirring up resistance to the French “far right", as represented by the NR. To widespread surprise, it seems to have worked. The final round of French voting saw Le Pen’s rightist party pushed back.
Also read: Deeply divided France risks unprecedented deadlock after election shock
Stunned by their first-round weakness, the left-wing alliance and Macron’s centrists withdrew their candidates against each other in several places to consolidate anti-NR votes. While that tactic might have succeeded and Macron can claim credit, governance in France could find itself hamstrung by a hung parliament. The NR’s rise could still leave French politics shaken up.
