Le Grand Débat: If “no one won” the French legislative elections, then what happens now?

Uncertainty is the order of the day in Paris. The Olympics are roaring to life, yet little talk among the citizens of the capital focuses on this once-in-a-lifetime event (save, perhaps, discussions of the Mayor’s attempt to prove the cleanliness of the Seine for the contest by swimming in its murky waters). Instead, all eyes are on the increasingly unclear future of the French government, which formally resigned on 16 July to make way for coalition negotiations.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way: when President Emmanuel Macron surprised rivals and allies alike with his decision to call a snap election, responding to the far-right’s surge in European Parliament elections, it was in the hopes of seizing victory from the jaws of defeat. An all-or-nothing gamble, for which the rewards would have secured Macron a legacy as a master political strategist – the bulwark of the Republic against the extremist forces of Left and Right. ‘Jupiter’, as the man himself once likened, and which has since been sardonically adopted by the President’s critics.

The gamble failed, and Jupiter fell to Earth

Instead, the gamble failed, and Jupiter fell to Earth, losing a third of his party’s seats in the National Assembly. Gabriel Attal, the youngest PM in French history, may also prove one of the shortest serving, having now resigned with an angry swipe at the President who torched his political future. Macron himself has remained defensive, insisting that while the results were not a victory for his own party, “no one won” the legislative elections. But if that’s true, then what happens now? What lies in store for a Republic arguably more divided than it has ever been?

Right off the bat, it must be said that the notion that no party won the election is a verdict strongly contested by at least one of the election’s three factions. While both Macron’s centrist bloc and the far-right National Rally left the election in a manner akin to survivors exiting a car-wreck, for the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP), the results of 7 July represented a spectacular reversal of fortunes. Only eight months on from the ignominious collapse of their previous leftist alliance, NUPES, over disagreements on the war in Gaza, France’s two leading left-wing parties, the radical France Unbowed (LFI) and more moderate Socialist Party, papered over their differences to create a united front for the election, alongside the French Communist Party and the Greens. This broad alliance defied all expectations to romp to success, winning 33% of the vote and 188 seats. Whilst far short of the 289 necessary for a majority in the Assemblée, the total has put the NFP comfortably ahead of the centre as France’s largest bloc, prompting it to claim the mandate to form a new government.

Yet, having just won the war, this new coalition seems set to lose the peace: indeed, the alliance is breaking at the seams. Having not chosen a formal leader in the election – opting instead for a collective leadership – the NFP has found itself floundering. As part of any process to form a new government, the bloc would first have to present a candidate for Prime Minister, and on this simple issue the alliance has ripped itself apart. Already, they have burned through at least six candidates, as the LFI and Socialists vie for the right to raise up their own nominee. After the Socialists rejected a compromise candidate from the Communists on 14 July, LFI threatened to end discussions entirely, accusing the Socialists of seeking an agreement with Macron’s centrists instead.

Should the NFP fall apart, needless to say the left’s chances of forming a government would be over. And the bloc’s disunity has already cost them a costly opening defeat: when legislators met on 18 June to elect their President of the Assembly – the fourth most powerful position in France – leftist disunity allowed the centre’s candidate, Yaël Braun-Pivet, to beat her Communist opponent, André Chassaigne, by just 13 votes. Braun-Pivet’s candidacy, which succeeded thanks to crucial support from the right-wing Republicans, stood in stark contrast to Chassaigne’s, which had only emerged after days of bitter horse-trading between the NFP’s members.

Macron is perhaps the least-suited of any figure in France – save, perhaps, his rivals in National Rally – to act as a conciliatory figure, being essentially politically radioactive in the wake of the election, even in his own party.

Braun-Pivet’s win gave an insight into the possible route by which Macron’s centrist bloc, Ensemble, could yet salvage a victory from the wreckage of the election. The 11th-hour deal with the Republicans came about in part thanks to the intervention of the President – now, his allies have suggested that it is Macron, rather than the Assemblée, who should break the electoral deadlock by nominating a compromise PM. Certainly, there is precedent in other European nations for the head of state to play the part of parliamentary arbitrator. But truthfully, Macron is perhaps the least-suited of any figure in France – save, perhaps, his rivals in National Rally – to act as a conciliatory figure, being essentially politically radioactive in the wake of the election, even in his own party.

Having long been abhorred by both the French political left and right, the decision by Macron to call a surprise election – one made entirely on his own counsel – has left him firmly out of favour with Ensemble, for whom the decision came with a great cost. France’s nascent centrist political movement is wrestling with a wider existential problem: having been founded almost single-handedly by Macron only eight years ago, the French liberal bloc has found itself scrambling for an identity outside the President’s shadow, given that term limits mean Macron will have to bow out for good in 2026. Increasingly, the President and his at- times arrogant rhetoric had become an unhelpful distraction for liberal lawmakers trying to pass legislation through a minority government. That Macron has now taken a sledgehammer to this government – entirely unnecessarily, in the eyes of his party – and blowtorched the career of what had been his most promising successor, Attal, along with it, has done little to endear him to his lieutenants. The President’s input is now thoroughly unwelcome, at what is fast becoming a crucial stage for Ensemble’s own survival.

Much as Charlemagne’s empire was divided amongst his sons and then promptly destroyed, as his heirs fought between themselves, Macron’s party finds its succession unclear and the rifts between the various contenders for ‘Emperor’ growing with every passing day. Those favouring Gabriel Attal, who secured a life-raft out of Macron’s doomed administration on 13 July with his election as Ensemble’s leader in the Assemblée, are now pushing for the centre to look leftwards, advocating a broad coalition of parties across the political spectrum to freeze out the far-right National Rally, as well as LFI. Opponents of this plan, many of whom regard the broader left, not just LFI, with suspicion and hostility, are now instead backing Gérald Darmanin, the Interior Minister and one of few senior members of Ensemble to defend Macron’s election decision. Darmanin’s supporters have argued for the centre to lean rightwards by forming an arrangement with the Republicans, in a similar move to the agreement that allowed Braun-Pivet to be elected Assembly President. Yet despite that cooperation, the Republicans have so far continued to flatly refuse any proposal for a wider coalition agreement, frustrating the Darmanin camp’s plans. Some in Ensemble now look set to desert the President’s movement entirely, following in the footsteps of longtime Macron ally Sacha Houlié, who announced on 10 July that he was forming his own centrist Assemblée group. Having struggled to create a sense of identity even before their defeat in the snap election, the divisions in Macron’s party have been inflamed more than ever, a problem that will vastly complicate any effort by the centre to stitch together a coalition agreement.

No matter what happens over the next few weeks, France is entering unknown territory – there has never been a period without functioning government lasting longer than nine days in modern French history, yet now the country seems set to barrel past this milestone. It is impossible to predict the outcome of the coalition negotiations that will now ensue… almost. Ironically, for an election called out of fear at the advance of the far-right, the only prediction that can be made with any certainty is that the next government of France will not include National Rally. Having been near-universally predicted to come first in the election, the party instead came third, and its leadership has not yet recovered. Instead, it has become yet another French political bloc to succumb to infighting, as the party debates how exactly it lost the election so catastrophically. If uncertainty is the order of the day in Paris, then chaos is the byword – and France looks set for weeks, if not months more of this to come.