The New Popular Front, a coalition of socialists and communists, won the final vote in hastily called legislative elections by French President Emmanuel Macron, who sided with the far-left in a bid to thwart Marine Le Pen’s populist party.
2040 Update: Far-Left Leader Mélenchon Makes Demands on Macron
After winning more seats than any other party in the second round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, socialist-communist New Popular Front leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called on President Emmanuel Macron to either step down or “appoint a prime minister from our camp.” Mélenchon has previously said he should take over as prime minister, but it is unclear whether Macron intends to do so.
2030 Update: Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announces resignation, Le Pen vows to keep fighting
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, President Emmanuel Macron’s number two, announced that he would submit his resignation to the head of state tomorrow morning: “As of this evening, the political group that I represented in this campaign does not have a majority, I will submit my resignation to the President of the Republic tomorrow morning.”
With no party winning an absolute majority, Attal could return to the prime ministerial position, but if Macron wants to rule the country in a parliamentary alliance with the New Popular Front, he will likely be forced to hand the prime ministerial position to a far-left candidate.
Responding to the disappointing result, Marine Le Pen, leader of the populist National Rally party in the French parliament, said: “I have no experience enough to be disappointed by a result in which the number of MPs has doubled… The tide is rising… Our victory is simply delayed.”
“If there hadn’t been this unnatural agreement between Mâcon and the far left, the Rally National would have had an absolute majority,” she argued. “The situation is unsustainable. Will Jean-Luc Mélenchon become prime minister?”
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According to the first Ipsos exit poll, the New Popular Front, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, also known as the French Bernie Sanders, is expected to win the most seats in parliament, between 172 and 192. The far-left failed to secure a majority of 289 seats.
Meanwhile, President Macron’s coalition is expected to win between 150 and 170 seats, making it likely that he will have to team up with far-left forces to stay in power.
Far-left leader Mélenchon says ‘native French’ poses ‘serious problems’ for social cohesionhttps://t.co/QabdpihpDA
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 16, 2024
In a disappointing result, Marine Le Pen’s Rally National (RN) party, which won the first round last week, has fallen to third place with 132 to 152 seats. Finally, the centre-right Republicans are projected to win 57 to 67 seats. Figaro Reports.
The results underscore the French government’s ability to use an outdated parliamentary system created after World War II to limit the power of outsiders at a time of deep political conflict and on the brink of civil war.
Had last week’s results been confirmed, a right-wing populist party would have been the largest party, but the second round of voting gave the government and political establishment the power to rally its supporters, who turned out to vote at the highest rate in decades, to thwart Le Pen. Macron’s faction reportedly made deals with the far-left in around 200 constituencies to weaken the populist party’s ability to win a majority.
Following the disappointing result, RN leader Jordan Bardella thanked his supporters but lamented that the “unholy alliance” between Macron and the New Popular Front “will throw France into the arms of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left party”.
‘League of Dishonor’: Macron backs far-left to thwart rise of right-wing https://t.co/90Ep1aHzlY
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 2, 2024
Many across Europe have questioned why Macron, as one of the EU’s leading globalist figures, would call for early elections and risk a lame-duck status for the next three years. Like many neoliberal globalists, Macron suffered a major defeat in last month’s EU parliamentary elections and is therefore likely seeking to re-establish the legitimacy of his rule.
The former Rothschild banker appears to have pinned his hopes on his ability to rally the public around fears of a populist takeover, as he had done successfully throughout his political career.
But the first round of last week’s election revealed that Macron had lost his center-right status: His coalition could only hold on to 21% of the vote, compared with Marine Le Pen and her conservative coalition’s 33.2%. Macron’s coalition also trailed the New Popular Front, a hastily-cobbled far-left coalition of Communists and Socialists led by radical Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which won 28.2% of the vote.
Faced with the prospect of a National Front majority, President Macron made the controversial move to form an electoral alliance with the New Popular Front, despite having warned just days earlier that a vote for the Rally National or the far left would lead to a “civil war” in France.
France’s far-left puts Antifa activists on national security watch list ahead of early electionshttps://t.co/BX9YMNQdqs
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 19, 2024
The government’s hyperbolic rhetoric was continued by Macron’s deputy prime minister, Gabriel Attal, who Said Comment of the week: “I think it’s dangerous for the far right and the RN to have a majority.”
“If the RN program is implemented, there will be a lot of violence in society… It will also be a disaster for our economy,” he added.
But despite Macron’s globalists’ warnings about the so-called “far right” – a term Le Pen rejects because her economic policies are largely left-wing – Macron’s now far-left partners have been behind many of the large-scale violent riots over the past year, including the riots that followed last week’s National Rally victory in the first round of the vote.
Indeed, even before the first results were published, shopkeepers on the Champs-Élysées were Began In Paris, police sealed off storefronts in anticipation of further left-wing violence. A total of 30,000 police officers were deployed, including 5,000 in Paris, in preparation for left-wing riots on Sunday night.
‘When a police officer dies, Le Pen loses votes’: Violent far-left rhetoric abounds as French elections loom https://t.co/M4e8viOLNO
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 29, 2024
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