The Regime Shaken by Inflation... French President Macron Fails to Secure Majority Seats

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

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Record-breaking inflation is shaking the political landscapes of major countries around the world.

In the French legislative election held on the 19th (local time), the centrist pro-government coalition led by French President Emmanuel Macron failed to secure a majority in the National Assembly. 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 245 seats in this election. This figure falls significantly 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, leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), which secured 131 seats. The far-right National Rally (RN), led by Marine Le Pen, who was Macron's rival in April, made a surprising advance by winning 89 seats, achieving their best-ever result.

In the previous legislative election, the National Rally only won 8 seats, but this time they aimed to secure more than 15 seats to form a parliamentary group, and they far exceeded this goal, achieving great success.

This election selected 577 members of the National Assembly for a five-year term. Their terms will largely coincide with President Macron, who was re-elected in April. With the ruling party failing to dominate the Assembly in this election, President Macron faces a major crisis just two months after his re-election.

To push forward economic reform pledges such as tax cuts, pension reform, and raising the retirement age, cooperation with other forces in the Assembly will be necessary.

Inflation emerged as the voters' top concern in this French legislative election. One of the reasons for President Macron's defeat is attributed to an election strategy that emphasized security issues such as the Ukraine war rather than inflation. In contrast, M?lenchon focused on freezing prices of essential goods as a key campaign promise. France's Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate reached a record high of 5.8% last month.

Soaring inflation has become a key issue in other major countries as well. In the Australian general election held last month, the opposition Labor Party defeated the then-ruling Liberal-National Coalition, ending 8 years and 9 months of government, amid the worst inflation in 20 years and a housing price surge. In the United States and Japan, the approval ratings of President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have been negatively impacted.

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