Macron Fails to Secure Parliamentary Majority in France... Emergency for Second-Term Governance (Comprehensive)

French President Emmanuel Macron (right) and Prime Minister ?lisabeth Borne [Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] The centrist pro-government coalition led by French President Emmanuel Macron failed to secure a parliamentary majority in the French legislative election held on the 19th (local time). President Macron, who had won the presidential election just two months ago, is expected to face significantly diminished power to push forward policies such as economic reforms due to the changed parliamentary landscape compared to his first term.

According to the initial election results released by the French Ministry of the Interior, the pro-government coalition "Ensemble," including President Macron's centrist Renaissance party, secured 242 seats with 38.52% of the vote share. This figure falls far short of the majority threshold of 289 seats. Foreign media reported that this is the first time since 1988 that a newly elected French president has failed to secure a majority in the legislative election.

The main opposition party is the left-wing coalition "NUPES," led by Jean-Luc M?lenchon's La France Insoumise (LFI), which secured 125 seats. The far-right National Rally (RN), led by Marine Le Pen, made a surprising advance by winning 89 seats, achieving its best-ever result. In the previous legislative election, the National Rally had only won 8 seats, but this time it aimed to form a parliamentary group by securing more than 15 seats and far exceeded that goal, achieving great success.

Leader M?lenchon described the election results as a complete defeat for President Macron and stated that his party has become the new face of France's historic rebellion and revival of reform. Leader Le Pen declared victory on the day and emphasized that they will "firmly be the opposition."

In this legislative election, 577 members of the National Assembly with a five-year term were elected. Their terms will almost coincide with President Macron, who was re-elected in April. With the ruling party unlikely to dominate the parliament in this election, President Macron faces a major crisis just two months after his re-election.

To immediately push forward economic reform pledges such as tax cuts, pension reform, and raising the retirement age, cooperation with other forces in the parliament is necessary. Accordingly, unlike the first term where policy promotion was accelerated, the second term's governance is expected to lose some momentum and slow down. In particular, since opposition leader M?lenchon has pledged policies such as lowering the retirement age, which contradict President Macron's policies, clashes within the parliament are inevitable.

Foreign media have described President Macron's defeat in this legislative election as a "devastating loss" and an "earthquake." Not only did he fail to secure a majority, but Macron's close aides and ministers, including National Assembly Speaker Richard Ferrand, were also defeated in this election, causing additional damage. President Macron has drawn a line stating that he must resign from the cabinet if defeated in the election.

Since the election, President Macron has not issued an official statement, but Prime Minister ?lisabeth Borne described the situation as "unprecedented" and a "national crisis," while Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire expressed disappointment with the results and said that imagination will be needed to implement the next reforms.

Meanwhile, the abstention rate in this election exceeded 53%, rising from 52.5% in the first round of voting.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.