A bolt from the blue: the left-wing alliance of the New Popular Front came out on top in the second round of legislative elections this Sunday, July 7, ahead of Ensemble and the National Rally, whose progress has been largely contained, according to initial estimates which do not show any majority to form a government.
According to the 8pm estimates from Ifop, the New Popular Front (NFP) would obtain between 180 and 199 seats. The left-wing alliance is ahead of the presidential majority, which obtains between 164 and 169 seats. The National Rally, finally, is third, with between 135 and 143 seats. The Republicans, for their part, would keep between 63 seats.
An unprecedented coalition in sight?
This tripartition, however, throws France into the fog, at the end of an election that strongly mobilized voters with a turnout of 67%, the highest since 1997. Because without reaching the bar of 289 deputies, or even getting close to it, no bloc seems able to form a government alone. While waiting for the consolidated figures, the positions taken by the major leaders and the intense negotiations to come, several scenarios, all unprecedented under the Fifth Republic, are emerging.
Will the left-wing parties and the Macronist camp find an improbable political agreement, after two years of fighting tooth and nail against the pension reform or the immigration law? What place will Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise have in the next system, whose supremacy on the left could now be challenged by a reinvigorated Socialist Party? Will the union of the left, which seems so fragile, survive this election?