Elections in France:the left is ahead, but the majority is far away

The exit polls, awaiting the final results of the elections in France, show a retreat of the far right.But the left does not get the majority to govern.

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The far-right party National Rally (Rn), led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, he failed to obtain a majority in the second round of the legislative elections in France which were held today, Sunday 7 July.On the contrary, as hypothesized by some observers in defiance of most official projections, the institutes Ipsos and Telan indicate a victory of New popular front (Nfp), or the alliance of the left that brings together Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise, Olivier Faure's Socialist Party and Marine Tondelier's Europe Ecologie Les Verts.And the RN, if the data are confirmed, will even arrive in third position, after Macron's centrists.

The "two candidates" strategy and the record turnout

In many regions where the run-offs were held, the left or centrist candidates who came third in last week's first round had withdrawn to give the candidate who would have had to face the Rassemblement National a better chance of victory.A strategy, known in France as "barrage", which aimed to stem the sovereignist wave and the fear of an anti-democratic drift, and which seems to have obtained the desired results.The elections in France took place in a tense atmosphere, with around 30 thousand police called to ensure security in several cities.

In some cases, however, centrist candidates refused to support those of the New Popular Front:for this reason, in dozens of constituencies, not "duels" but "triangular" events were held.

The left claims the right to govern France

The results are not definitive and votes should arrive in the next few hours from large cities where polling stations closed later than in the rest of the country.What is known for sure is that the turnout was very high, exceeding 67 percent.Never since 1997 have so many French people gone to the polls.An even higher figure than the first round of June 30th.The projections and exit polls, however, show a clear advance of the left, in second place in terms of number of seats should be the group of centrists who support the incumbent president Emmanuel Macron (Ensemble pour la République).Finally, in third place is Le Pen's far right.However, no one will have the majority of 289 seats in parliament out of 577, necessary to form an autonomous government.And the negotiations to form a coalition will be anything but simple considering the distances between the three blocs.It is not excluded, however, that we could choose the path of a minority executive, an expression of the left, as happened in the last two years with the centrists, who only enjoyed a relative majority.

We refuse to start consultations with his party [Macron's, ed.] to reach compromises, especially after having fought tirelessly, for seven years, his policies of social dismantling and climate inaction.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon

However, the reactions were not long in coming.All the leaders of the left immediately claimed the right to express the new prime minister, and stated that they will not accept compromises with President Macron's camp.In particular, they claimed the will to implement three points considered fundamental for the program:the freezing of the prices of basic necessities, the repeal of the pension reform desired by Macron and which caused months of protests in France, the revaluation of the Smic (the minimum wage) to 1,600 euros per month.

For his part, Macron showed himself to be a wait-and-see, declaring that he wanted to wait for the composition of the National Assembly to decide what to do.The news of the victory of the New Popular Front was probably greeted with surprise at the Elysée:although no one knows what the president's real intentions were at the time of the decision to dissolve Parliament, the current scenario is the one that was considered least likely.The political data expressed in the first round remains, when the RN obtained 9 million votes:a measure of the discontent especially in rural France, which evidently felt more represented by the far right than by the left and centre.