France could be heading for a prolonged political stalemate, with no party or alliance of parties appearing to have won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats, according to projections by French pollsters based on preliminary results.
The immediate path forward is unclear, experts said, but the country could be heading for months of political instability as President Emmanuel Macron faces a deeply divided parliament with two blocs firmly opposed to him.
“Without an absolute majority, the government will be at the mercy of the opposition parties which will unite” to overthrow it, believes Dominique Rousseau, professor emeritus of public law at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris.
Projections suggest that the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, will be roughly divided into three main blocs with conflicting agendas and, in some cases, deep animosity toward each other.
Pollsters’ projections released Sunday night after polls closed in the final round of the legislative election indicated that a group of left-wing parties called the New Popular Front would win the most seats, followed by Mr. Macron’s centrist alliance and the National Rally, a nationalist and anti-immigration party. It was not immediately clear whether the centrists or the right-wing National Rally would form the second-largest bloc.
As things stand, none of the three major blocs seems able to work with the others. Each could try to assemble a functional majority with a few small parties or independent MPs who will fill the remaining seats in the lower house. But their ability to do so is uncertain.
“French political culture is not conducive to compromise,” said Samy Benzina, a professor of public law at the University of Poitiers, noting that French institutions are normally designed to produce “clear majorities that can govern by themselves.”
A scenario in which no party manages to obtain an absolute majority — at least 289 of the 577 seats in the lower house — is not unprecedented in France. This is exactly what happened in the last legislative elections, in 2022.Mr Macron has nevertheless managed to form functioning governments that have successfully passed bills over the past two years.
But that was only because Mr Macron’s centrist coalition was large enough – with about 250 seats – and the parties opposing him were too divided to pose a consistent threat. When that wasn’t the case, Mr Macron’s government came dangerously close to falling.
This time, Mr Macron’s options appear much more limited.
His centrist coalition cannot govern alone. And few small parties – even the most moderate ones on the left or right – are eager to be associated with Mr Macron, who is deeply unpopular and has three years left in his term.
The National Rally has already said it would only govern if it had an absolute majority, or if it was just short of one and thought it could strike a deal with enough other MPs to close the gap. Marine Le Pen, the party’s longtime leader, told French radio last week that she would not accept “simply sitting in a minister’s seat without being able to do anything”, which she said would be “the worst betrayal” of the party’s voters.
On Sunday, a leader of one of the left-wing New Popular Front parties, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said he would not enter into negotiations with Mr Macron’s coalition to form a government together.
Some analysts and politicians have raised the possibility of a broader, “rainbow” coalition of parliamentarians who would agree on a limited number of key issues and stretch from the Greens to the more moderate conservatives. But several political leaders have already ruled out that possibility.
Another possibility would be to create an interim government of politically neutral experts who would manage day-to-day affairs until a political breakthrough is achieved. This would also be a break with French tradition.
France has a strong civil service that could keep the country running for a while without a government. But the Summer Olympics are just weeks away, and parliament typically approves a budget in the fall. Some analysts believe Mr. Macron’s position will become so untenable that he will have to resign, but he has said he won’t.
