Summary (updated Monday morning with the final figures): France's political landscape has undergone dramatic change tonight following the second round of legislative elections. In a major setback inflicted by voters, Emmanuel Macron has became the first president in 30 years not to win a working majority in the National Assembly, with his Ensemble coalition picking up 245 seats. This is far short of the 289 seats required for an overall majority in the National Assembly.
The lack of a working majority will now force the government party to seek new partners in Parliament to ensure its reform package – or at least some of it – gets through. Prime minister Élisabeth Borne tonight hinted that the government was ready to reach out to other groups when she appealed for backing for policies on major issues, such as “full employment ... an ambitious ecological transition”.
If Emmanuel Macron's coalition was a clear loser tonight, there has been more than one winner. The broad left and environmental alliance NUPES, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and its allies have won 147 seats and become the main opposition force in the Assembly. The outcome has fully vindicated Melenchon's decision to produce an alliance between his own radical left La France Insoumise, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the French Communist Party, a move which has helped transform the political landscape. They now have a Parliamentary platform from which to have a major influence on day-to-day politics.
But another major and less expected beneficiary of tonight's vote has been Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National which has won 89 seats. In the last Parliament the RN had just eight MPs and this new group will now be able to wield considerable influence at the Assembly. The arrival of so many far-right MPs in the heart of the French Parliament will send shockwaves through the political establishment.
Another potential and surprise beneficiary of tonight's results could be the rightwing Les Républicains, even though their number of MPs has fallen to 61. Some in the party want it to do a deal with Macron's Ensemble in Parliament, though this move has been rejected – for now – by the LR leadership and would go down badly with many of its more hard-right MPs and members.
What does seem certain is that there will be a lot of horse-trading behind the scenes as the executive tries to work out how and with whom it can get its legislation passed as France, perhaps, moves to a more Parliamentary-style of governance.
There will also be a government reshuffle soon. Though most government ministers, including prime minister Élisabeth Borne, were elected or re-elected, there were some high-profile casualties. One was health minister Brigitte Bourguignon, another the minister for ecological transition Amélie de Montchalin. Macron has also lost two long-standing allies from the Assembly; former interior minister Christophe Castaner and the former president of the Assembly Richard Ferrand, both beaten tonight. The departure from the centre stage of politics of these two key pillars of the Macron political movement is a symbolic moment that underlines the extent of the political change that has swept France tonight.
Midnight: That's the end of Mediapart English's live coverage but this page will be updated on Monday morning with the final results.
11.47pm: Another sign of the political upheaval caused by tonight's results comes in a call from the mayor of France's major Mediterranean port city Marseille for a new constitution. Leftwing mayor Benoît Payan, a strong supporter of NUPES, said the results were a “political thunderclap” that had struck France's “ailing institutions”. Payan, whose own city has seen a far-right MP elected tonight, said he was more convinced than ever that profound democratic change was needed, and not just another consultation document. “We must summon a general assembly to invent a new Republic,” he declared.
11.26pm: In the last Parliament there was just one green MP elected. But within the NUPES alliance the greens are making a strong return to the National Assembly. Symbolic of that tonight is the election of Julien Bayou in Paris. Five years ago the man who is now head of the Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) green party did not even get through to the second round of voting. Now he has won his seat with 58% of the vote as part of the NUPES alliance.
11.20pm: In an interview tonight with public radio station France Info, Gilles Ivaldi, a political scientist and researcher with the Paris 'Sciences Po' school who is specialised in analysing French political parties and elections, offered his view of the success of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party.
“The RN vote is anti-establishment, and so difficult to predict in opinion surveys,” he said. “For my part, I would never have imagined that it could form a group of this size at the National Assembly.”
“Marine Le Pen and the Rassemblement National have led a discreet and furtive campaign, but [it was] on a theme that was at the heart of the preoccupations of the French people – purchasing power. Its positions on security at the end of the campaign, after the incidents at the Stade de France, have also no doubt convinced its electorate.”
11.15pm: In a sign of how far-reaching some of the results tonight are, the far-right RN has picked up its first ever MPs in the Gironde département in south-west France. Both victories have come in wine-producing areas near Bordeaux. Edwige Diaz topped the poll in the Blaye wine region, easily beating the incumbent Macron supporter Véronique Hammerer with 58.7% of votes cast. Meanwhile in the Médoc the RN's Grégoire de Fournas beat the NUPES candidate Olivier Maneiro.
11.10pm: More from that brief speech by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne tonight: “Never, under the Fifth Republic, has the National Assembly known such a configuration,” she said. “[…] We must respect and draw the conclusions of this vote. As the central force of this new Assembly, we must take on a particular responsibility […] The French people call upon us to rally together for the country. For several weeks the government has been at work and taking measures that are necessary to protect each and every one.”
In what appeared to be an inviting nod to those MPs among the Left and the conservatives (and their own centre-right allies) who might be tempted to support the government, she appealed for backing for policies on major issues, “for full employment, an ambitious ecological transition”.
“We have everything in order to succeed,” she added, “and it is together that we will manage to do so.”
11.03pm: With results still coming in, a new estimate from pollsters Ipsos-Sopra Steria for France Télévisions, Radio France, France 24-RFI-MCD and LCP-Assemblée nationale says that President Macron's Ensemble coalition will (as mentioned below) win 234 seats, well short of the 289 required for an overall majority. The same estimate puts the Left and environmental alliance NUPES on 141 seats, which would make them the largest opposition group. According to the pollsters the far-right Rassemblement National will have 90 MPs – an astonishing figure considering that they currently have just eight – while the rightwing Les Républicains (LR) will reportedly win 75 of the 577 seats up for grabs. Looking at the mathematics it's little wonder that all eyes are currently on a possible pact between Ensemble and LR, even though the latter's leader Christian Jacob has insisted they are remaining “in opposition”.
10.48pm: With estimations predicting 234 seats for Emmanuel Macron’s centre-right coalition Ensemble, out of Parliament’s total of 577 seats, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne described the situation tonight as “never before seen”. She said it “constitutes a risk for our country”, adding: “As of tomorrow, we will work on building a [parliamentary] majority for action, there is no alternative”.
10.45pm: Amid the general delight on the Left at the performance of NUPES tonight, it appears not everyone is quite so satisfied. Le Figaro newspaper has spoken with some activists from La France Insoumise, the dominant force in the NUPES alliance. Simon, aged 37, from Paris said he had mixed feelings about the result and feared an alliance between the president's Ensemble coalition and the rightwing Les Républicains. “They'll control the Assembly with that,” he said. Another activist, Aziz, said they had hoped for a bigger result from NUPES. “And a lower score for the fascists,” he added. Meanwhile Pascal and Christian who are in early retirement, said they were “happy” but “not entirely satisfied”. Christian said he was worried that the environment would again be a forgotten issue. Pascal was hoping that the the left alliance “holds firm”.
10.35pm: Another symbolic defeat tonight for Macron’s centre-right coalition Ensemble is that of former sports minister Roxana Maracineanu who, until May this year, had served in government since 2018. She was defeated by NUPES leftwing coalition candidate Rachel Keke, a former hotel chambermaid who was one of the leaders of a two-year – and ultimately successful – strike by hotel cleaning staff demanding better pay and working conditions at an Ibis hotel in Paris.
10.33pm: The Left has achieved part of its mission by depriving Emanuel Macron of an overall majority in the National Assembly. That's the view of Fabien Roussel, head of the French Communist Party (PCF), who was elected under the NUPES banner in the Nord in northern France tonight. He said the president would be forced to “work and open a dialogue with all political groups” and talked of a major “repudiation” by voters of the head of state. “The major event of this election is the return of a great number of MPs of the Left, who with four groups will be the main opposition force,” said Roussel, who also regretted the “major progress” made by the far-right RN. The far-right's growth, he said, was a sign of a “political and democratic crisis” in France.
10.25pm: Clément Beaune, junior minister for European affairs, has won in the Paris constituency where he faced a NUPES leftwing coalition candidate. That now brings the number of ministers who have won their seats to eight, with the results concerning four others still not announced.
10.20pm: If, as the projections and now many individual results now suggest, President Macron's coalition is the single biggest party but has no overall majority, will this automatically lead to Parliamentary and governmental paralysis? That has been the assumption by some politicians tonight amid talks of a possible pact between Macron's camp and the rightwing Les Républicains.
But some experts are not so sure that this “relative majority” is all doom and gloom. Le Monde points out that there have been two previous occasions when the president's party was the biggest group but lacked an outright majority. The first was under general Charles de Gaulle and the second was under President François Mitterrand and prime minister Michel Rocard at the end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s.
The newspaper quotes Marie-Anne Cohendet, professor of constitutional law at Paris-I University, who says this second case did not lead to paralysis and in fact allowed Rocard to develop a culture of compromise. “The reason for being a Parliament is so that people can speak - one of the major vices of the Fifth Republic is that we don't speak enough because too often we have a majority that is under the control of the head of state,” said Marie-Anne Cohendet.
10.15pm: Amélie de Montchalin, who was appointed as minister for ecological transition and territorial cohesion, an important government post, has lost her duel against NUPES candidate Jérôme Guedj in a constituency in the southern Paris suburbs. She therefore must leave government, according to Emmanuel Macron’s stipulation that any minister who is defeated in the legislative elections must stand down.
At this hour, she becomes the third defeated member of government (see the 8.45pm report). Seven ministers have won their seats (it is their deputies who will sit in Parliament), while the results concerning five others are not yet announced.
10.05pm: “We are going to very soon build a majority so that it becomes absolute in the National Assembly,” commented an optimistic Olivier Véran, junior minister for relations with Parliament, interviewed on TV channel TF1. He said “other groups will allow us to obtain the sufficient quota of votes to present the reforms and to have the texts of [proposed legislation] adopted”.
9.59pm: The large NUPES Parliamentary group is already promising a baptism of fire for the government's new minister for solidarity and the disabled, Damien Abad, who has been elected tonight. Abad faces allegations of rape and attempted rape, accusations he denies. Sandrine Rousseau, a green member of the NUPES alliance, said the minister would get heckled” by her group. “If Damien Abad remains a minister several of us will oppose like never before to ensure that this person is not heard inside the National Assembly,” she said. “We can't allow women's voices to be humiliated again. The day that Damien Abad enters the Assembly there will be 180 MPs from NUPES who will carry out the required heckling so that he can't be heard.”
9.50pm: A correction to our report timed at 9.20pm: former health minister Olivier Véran was appointed to Emmanuel Macron's interim government in May as junior minister for relations with Parliament.
9.45pm: Eric Ciotti, an outspoken rightwing hardliner of the conservative Les Républicains, who stood in the party’s primaries to choose its candidate for the presidential elections (when he came second), has been re-elected in his constituency in south-east France.
Popular among the party’s rightwing, he echoed LR president Christian Jacob's comments tonight (see immediately below), and in the process contradicted his party colleague Jean-François Copé (see 8.58pm entry), insisting that LR would remain a party of opposition and would not become “the spare wheel for a routed ‘Macronism’”.
Meanwhile, all 19 candidates fielded by the LR party in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central and south east France (the regional council is led by party rightwinger Laurent Wauquiez), with a population of around eight million, have won their seats tonight.
9.38pm: Despite calls tonight from some on the Right to come to an agreement with Emmanuel Macron's centre-right Ensemble, this appears to have been ruled out – for the moment at least - by Les Républicains president Christian Jacob, who said the president had been guilty of “using” the country's political extremes, including at the presidential election. “He continued with that in the legislative elections and that has led to this result.” He stated: “We are in resolute opposition to Emmanuel Macron. That's the party's position.” And referring to comments from colleague Jean-François Copé about the need for a “pact” with Macron's party, Christian Jacob added: “Jean-Francois Copé is speaking in a personal capacity.” However, he did appear to leave the way open for future negotiations with President Macron. “The ball is in his court today, but for us there is no ambiguity - we're in opposition and we'll remain in opposition.”
9.20pm: Former health minister Olivier Véran who, until the interim government was appointed in May, had for two years weathered the Covid-19 crisis, has been comfortably defeated his NUPES leftwing alliance challenger in a constituency in the Isère département (county) in south-east France, garnering a 67.5% share of the vote.
9.18pm: The head of La France Insoumise and architect of the NUPES alliance, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has saluted what he calls the “total rout” of the presidential coalition Ensemble. “There is no one with a majority.” he told supporters. “France has spoken and it has to be said, insufficiently – the level of abstentions [editor's note around 54%] is still far too high - which means that a large section of France doesn't know which way to turn, given that the three blocs are at similar levels,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “We still don't know if the NUPES's breakthrough has put us in first or second position.”
He continued: “But this is a failure of the Macronistas, a moral failure of those who kept handing out lessons to everyone. They have swelled the ranks of the [far-right] RN.” Mélenchon then spoke of Ensemble's failure to give clear guidance to voters who were faced with a straight choice between NUPES and the RN in more than 50 constituencies. “The Macronista lesson-givers were incapable of giving an instruction in 52 cases, which now disqualifies them from giving lessons about anything.” He then saluted the defeats of former education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer in the first round and those of former interior minister Christophe Castaner and the current minister for ecological transition Amélie de Montchalin today.
Melenchon, who did not himself stand again as an MP, said his commitment remained undimmed and added: “Tomorrow you might wake up with a NUPES majority perhaps, or with NUPES as the main political force.”
9.10pm: It has now been confirmed that Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne has won her seat in Normandy, with just less than a 53% share of the vote, in face of a radical-left LFI party candidate representing the NUPES alliance.
Borne, 61, a technocrat and civil servant formerly close to the Parti Socialiste, who previously served in Macron’s 2017-2022 governments as, successively, minister of transport, minister for ecological transition, and labour minister, was appointed as prime minister by Emmanuel Macron in mid-May, one month after his re-election.
Her future now is uncertain, as the huge parliamentary upset for Macron’s centre-right party today must inevitably result in a shakeup of government to reflect whatever new alliances it may now be forced to make.
9.04pm: Another of tonight's winners is without doubt the absentee voter. According to a projection by pollsters Ipsos-Sopra Steria for France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde and parliamentary channels, the abstention rate today was around 54%.
8.58pm: More from Jean-François Copé: “For weeks now I have repeated that a government pact between Macron and LR is vital in order to fight against the rise of extremes. The far-left like the far-right are absolute dangers for France. They both represent violence, tension and sectarianism.”
“Everyone is now placed in front of their responsibilities at the end of this electoral disaster for the president. Security, public spending, secularism, state reform – it is today down to the republican [traditional conservative] Right to save the country.”
The conservatives, who like the socialists were for decades a party of government until Emmanuel Macron's landlside victory in 2017, are now content to have survived humiliation, and which would certainly have led to an implosion of LR, by gaining what is at this hour an estimated 78 seats out of Parliament's 577.
8.55pm: RN's leader Marine Le Pen has tonight celebrated the creation of a Parliamentary group that is “by far the most numerous in our history”. She said: “We have achieved our objectives: to make Emmanuel Macron a minority president, lacking control of power. To continue the political recomposition that is vital for democratic revitalisation. And to form an opposition group determined to face those who deconstruct from above, the Macronistas, and those who do it from below, NUPES. We represent a strong opposition but one which respects the institutions. We have won for France and for the Republic!”
8.50pm: Jean-François Copé, a veteran figure (and former minister) of the conservative Les Républicains (LR) party tonight called for a parliamentary alliance with Emmanuel Macron’s centre-right coalition Ensemble.
At the LR HQ in Paris there was applause when the initial results were announced tonight. “We resisted better than was expected,” said one unnamed LR official present there, as cited by France Info radio. Another described the new Parliament as “ungovernable” for Macron.
8.46pm: One projection suggests that the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) will have 89 MPs in the next Parliament, more than ten times its current number of eight. Such a number will give it considerable clout in the Assembly; a group with 56 or more MPs can lay down motions of censure, while groups with 60 MPs or more can refer legislation to the Constitutional Council for scrutiny.
8.45pm: President Macron’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin has been re-elected in his constituency in the Nord département (county) in north-east France.
Meanwhile, in the neighbouring Pas-de-Calais, health minister Brigitte Bourguignon has lost her duel against the far-right Rassemblement National party candidate, and as a result will have to leave the government. Similarly, the junior minister for maritime affairs, Justine Benin, has lost her duel against the leftwing candidate in her constituency in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, and will also now step down from government.
8.42pm: There were joyous scenes in Hénin-Beaumont in northern France tonight, at the headquarters of RN boss Marine Le Pen. As the first projections flashed up on the television screens, suggesting the party would obtain between 80 and a 100 seats – it currently has eight – one member said: “This is unimaginable.” Another said: “The French people are disgusted by the Left and the Right, they finally understood that it's time for change.”
Ironically, earlier in the elections Marine Le Pen had been accused of running a lacklustre campaign in which she appeared to have thrown in the towel from the start, suggesting that President Macron's party was certain to win a majority. Now, however, the failed presidential candidate's far-right party looks like emerging one of the major winners from tonight.
8.31pm: Already the Left and environmentalists are calling for Emmanuel Macron to take heed of them following tonight's results. NUPES candidate Sandrine Rousseau called it an “historic” night for the Left and said: “The Left has never had such a group in opposition.” She said that the president would now have to “deal with the Left” and “hear what he has refused to hear in recent years”. Meanwile senior NUPES figure Clémentine Autain called the outcome an “incredible breakthrough” by the Left which “validated the strategy” delivered by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of La France Insoumise and driving force behind the alliance.
8.25pm: Richard Ferrand has now himself confirmed his defeat this evening in face of the candidate from the NUPES leftwing coalition. Former socialist Ferrand, 59, joined Macron’s LREM movement as of its creation in 2016, when he became its secretary-general, and was latterly the party’s executive bureau president.
8.20pm: Another blow for the French president is the estimation that Richard Ferrand, president (speaker) of the national Assembly and another key ally of Emmanuel Macron has lost his seat in Brittany, north-west France.
8.15pm: One of the many projections tonight gives the left alliance NUPES 149 seats in the new National Assembly. If so, it marks a strong performance by the Left and the Greens, who were crushed in the same elections in 2017. However, given the weak showing of the ruling Ensemble coalition NUPES may have expected to pick up rather more seats than 150. Instead, it looks as if the rightwing Les Républicains and above all the far-right Rassemblement National have also been beneficiaries of the weakness of Macron's coalition.
8.10pm: The Rassemblement National's youthful president Jordan Bardella described the RN's predicted results as a “tidal wave”. He said: “I want to say an immense thank you to the French people who have turned out and allowed this navy blue wave. We start our work from tomorrow. The president is in a minority, it's his scorn and his powerlessness that have put the president in a minority. It's a great breakthrough.”
8.10pm: Initial exit poll estimations by Ipsos-Sopra Steria for public broadcasters Radio France and France Télévisions (and whose estimations proved accurate in the first round) gives Emmanuel Macron’s centre-right election coalition ‘Ensemble’ 224 seats in parliament, well short of the 289 it needed for an absolute majority. The atmosphere at the Ensemble HQ in Paris is reported to be grim.
Prime minister Élisabeth Borne is estimated to have won her seat in a constituency in Calvados in Normandy by a narrow 53% of votes cast. Any member of government who loses the elections this evening is due, on Macron’s order, to stand down.
Damien Abad, newly appointed minister for solidarity and the disabled who faces rape and sexual assault accusations, has reportedly won in his south-east constituency, while former interior minister and key Macron ally, Christophe Castaner, who since 2020 has been leader of Macron's LREM party group in the National Assembly, has failed his re-election bid in his constituency in Manosque.
8pm: The first exit poll predictions suggest Emmanuel Macron's 'Ensemble' coalition has failed to win an overall majority in the National Assembly. The exit polls say that the centre-right coalition is likely to win around 205 to 250 of the Assembly's 577 seats. The number needed to gain an overall majority is 289. If the projections are correct it means the president's party will be the largest group in the Assembly but will lack a working majority to carry out his reform programme. The same projections suggest the broad left and environmentalist alliance NUPES has picked up between 150 and 180. This makes the alliance the main opposition party in the new National Assembly, representing a major achievement for its creator Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran head of the radical left La France Insoumise. But one of the biggest winners of the night - and most unexpected - is the far-right Rassemblement National. Estimates say they could have won between 80 and 100 seats, and if so this would make them the leading Parliamentary force on the right, ahead of Les Républicains, who are forecast to have won 60 to 70 seats.
7.45pm: The first results of the second round are in fact already in; they come from France's overseas départements (countries) and territories. The main news here is that the government is already set to lose at least one minister. The minister for the sea, Justine Benin, failed to win her seat in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. President Emmanuel Macron has made it known that any ministers who fail to win their seat will be expected to resign from the government.
Welcome to Mediapart English's coverage of the crucial second round of France's legislative elections this Sunday. At stake this evening is whether Emmanuel Macron's centre-right 'Ensemble' coalition can win an overall majority in the National Assembly to allow the head of state to push forward his programme of reforms, including on pensions. For such a majority his coalition needs to win at least 289 of the 577 National Assembly seats. The polls have suggested that the result hangs in the balance, with the broad left NUPES alliance hoping to deprive Macron's government of that outright majority. Live coverage starts at 8pm CET when the initial projections for the results will be known. In the meantime, below is a short guide to the election and what is at stake.
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A brief guide to the elections
How they work:
These legislative elections are choosing the 577 members (MPs) of the French Parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly, for a five-year term which runs in parallel with the five-year term of the president, Emmanuel Macron, who was re-elected in April.
In mainland France, polling stations opened at 8am and closed at 6pm in rural constituencies, and at 8pm in cities and large towns.
The elections have taken place over two rounds, on June 12th and June 19th. MPs can be elected in the first round if they gain a more than 50% share of votes cast, and only if that represents 25% or more of the total number of registered voters. In fact, just five MPs were elected on June 12th. The vast majority of results will only be decided in today's second round, in a first-past-the-post system in each constituency.
There are 47.8 million registered voters in mainland France and its overseas départements (counties). The latter have eight MPs out of the total 577, while 11 other MPs represent virtual constituencies of French citizens living abroad.
The National Assembly is the key law-making chamber. Members of the less powerful upper house, the Senate, are chosen in separate elections, in a region-by-region vote involving only local elected officials.
What’s at stake:
For the recently re-elected Emmanuel Macron, it is crucial that his ‘Ensemble’ centre-right electoral coalition, dominated by his Renaissance party (the re-named former LREM), wins an absolute majority in order to push through his planned reforms, notably raising the retirement age and re-modelling the welfare system.
He enjoyed a thumping majority in parliament over his first term in office between 2017-2022, with his party and its allies winning 350 of the 577 seats. But the context has changed; no longer a fresh face, and trailing an image of arrogance, he won his new term in a playoff against the far-right’s Marine Le Pen after many of the votes he garnered were cast to defeat Le Pen. Those who felt their vote was hijacked by that duel, notably those on the Left, now have a second chance to change the shape of government. In the first round last weekend the coalition picked up just under 26% of the popular vote.
The latest polls suggest 'Ensemble' could today win between 265 and 305 seats. This is far below the 350 it won in 2017. Below 289 and it would have no absolute majority, though it seems certain to win the largest number of seats of any political group.
One reason for its less strong showing in 2022 has been the resurgence of the Left. In the two months since the presidential elections, the fractured Left has come together in a coalition, NUPES – for New Popular Ecological and Social Union – , with which to contest the legislative poll. Led by the radical-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, it includes the Socialist Party, the French Communist Party and the Green EELV party.
In every constituency, just one common candidate for the NUPES stood in the first round, thus avoiding a splitting of the broad Left vote. In the first round NUPES picked up just under 26% of the vote share – a fraction behind Emmanuel Macron's Ensemble coalition – and was present in nearly 400 second round contests today. Earlier hopes that NUPES could even win the election with a majority have proved over optimistic. But opinion polls suggest that the alliance could win between 140 and 200 seats today, making it the main opposition group and a major force to be reckoned with. Given the level of expectation that has built up, fewer than 150 MPs would probably bee seen as a disappointment.
To put the likely results today in context, the dominant force in the NUPES alliance, La France Insoumise (LFI), won just 17 seats in the last Parliament; the Socialist Party and its allies had 45 seats and the Greens just one.
Meanwhile, the conservative Les Républicains (LR) party, whose support collapsed in the presidential elections (as also did support for the socialists and the Greens) performed better than expected in the first round last week. However, they have little or no chance of winning the 112 seats they held in 2017 when they were the main opposition party. Instead, polls suggest anywhere between 50 and 80 seats for the LR today. But though this would be a dramatic drop compared with their 2017 performance – and bearing in mind they were once the party of government - they could yet have a key role to play (see below).
Finally, the far-right in the shape of the Rassemblement National (the former Front National) is hoping to make gains on the eight MPs it had in the last Parliament, though the first-past-the-post system of the legislative elections work against them. The polls suggest it could win between 25 and 50 seats, a huge improvement on 2017 and this would allow it to form its own Parliamentary group (for which the threshold is 15 MPs). But that number would still be far short of the 100 MPs targeted by party chief Marine Le Pen.
What happens if Macron's Ensemble fails to win an overall majority?
If Emmanuel Macron's Ensemble coalition fails to win 289 or more seats and win an overall majority that does not mean that his government falls. Ensemble are, after all, virtually certain to be the biggest single group in the Assembly. Instead, there are two main options for Macron and his prime minister Élisabeth Borne. One is to sign a pact with another political group in the National Assembly to ensure Ensemble's political programme has a workable majority. Realistically this could only be the rightwing Les Républicains, putting the latter in a strong position as power brokers. This might, however, cause internal issues in Ensemble where some of the more left-leaning MPS might be reluctant to see the LR calling some of the legislative shots.
The other main option is that the Borne government pushes through its legislative programme on a case-by-case basis, seeking a majority for each new piece of legislation.
In any likely outcome, there is set to be a government reshuffle within days of these elections. One reason is that the Élisabeth Borne government has yet to fill a host of junior ministerial posts. The second reason is that some current ministers may fail to get elected today, and Emmanuel Macron has indicated that is such a case they will have to leave the government.