The left won the elections in France.What happens now?

The left-wing New Popular Front coalition won a relative majority of seats in the French elections.Now he claims the task of forming a new government.

• The New Popular Front obtained 182 seats, the Macronians 168, the far right Rassemblement National 143.
• Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has resigned and now the New Popular Front is asking to be able to express the new prime minister.
• France is divided between the possibility of cohabitation and that of a coalition between the left and the Macronians, which however seems difficult.

Legislative elections in France were won by left.In the second round on 7 July the New Popular Front (NFP), born hastily after the vote was called and which brings together the Socialist Party, the Greens, La France Insoumise of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the communists, obtained the relative majority of seats, i.e 182.She placed second Ensemble pour la République, the president's centrist coalition Emmanuel Macron, with 168 seats.The far-right party National Rally, which had won the first electoral round and which had led the two coalitions of the left and center to withdraw some of their candidates from the run-off to avoid dispersing the votes, came only third with 143 deputies.

No party or coalition has obtained an absolute majority of seats and this makes it difficult to understand who the new French government will be made up of.Scenarios range from cohabitation to the possibility of a national unit executive or technical, passing through the convocation of new elections.

The victory of the left

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regions where the run-offs were held, the left or centrist candidates who came third in last week's first round had withdrawn to give the candidate who would have had to face the Rassemblement National a better chance of victory.A strategy, known in France as “barrage”, which aimed to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 which evidently succeeded.

The July 7 he went to vote in the runoffs 66.7 percent of those entitled, beating the last record of 1997.And if a week ago there was talk of the possibility of the far right gaining an absolute majority, the ruling of the second electoral round is that did not reach not even a relative majority, even placing third.The New popular front with Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the ecologist party Europe Écologie Les Verts won the elections with 182 seats and right from the start there was a strong demand for Emmanuel Macron, the French president who came in second place with 168 seats with his centrist coalition Ensemble pour la République, he entrusted the left of the New Popular Front with the task of forming a new government, as per tradition in France when a party or a coalition obtains the majority of votes, even if only relative.

“The name of the prime minister candidate within a week”, he announced the leader of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure.Even the leader of ecologists, Marine Tondelier, underlined Macron's duty to ask the coalition to form the new government.Meanwhile, the current Macronian prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has already resigned, but the president asked him to remain prime minister “for the moment to ensure the stability of the country“.

What is happening now in France?

The formation of the new government may require a long time.This is because there is no time limit set by French law, but also because the situation emerging from the polls is very unstable, with three big political blocs to divide the parliament.

One of the most probable scenarios is that of the so-called cohabitation.The left-wing coalition, which has a slim relative majority in parliament, would be given the task of forming a new government which, however, would have to find a majority from time to time to get its measures approved, with a president, Emmanuel Macron, an expression of a third party.The New popular front he has not yet given any indication as to who could be the prime minister of the coalition, but it should not be Mélenchon, a name that could create internal tensions.

Another scenario is the one that sees the creation of a coalition government, which thus has the absolute majority in parliament.After the first electoral round on 30 June, the Macronians and the left, whose relations are anything but idyllic, agreed to withdraw most of their candidates listed as third in the runoffs, so as to form a common front against the far right .The “barrage” it could have been the prelude to a government coalition, which however seems distant. “No deal”, swore Mélenchon, underlining how it would be a betrayal of the French vote.And speaking of the defeat of both the far right and President Macron.The resigning Prime Minister Attal, who in recent days had winked at a coalition, he now pointed out That “far right and far left are in fact the same thing”, making the distance between the New Popular Front and the Macronian bloc even clearer.But someone on the left he opened to a coalition or at least to try to set up a dialogue, especially among the ranks of Socialist Party.

Other more remote possibilities include the creation of a national or technical unity government, led by extra-political figures such as Mario Draghi or Mario Monti for Italy.The instability resulting from the elections and the possible extreme difficulties in forming a new government could also lead President Macron to dissolve parliament again and call new elections, but the law provides that this can only happen once a year and it would therefore be discussed in 2025.