Emmanuel Macron’s majority in doubt after first round of French parliament vote
- Macron’s ‘Ensemble’ alliance neck-and-neck with left-wing coalition NUPES after first round vote
- Losing his outright majority could curtail French president’s ability to carry out his reforms
French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance was in danger of falling short of a majority after a first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday that saw a surge in support for a new left-wing coalition.
Macron’s “Ensemble” (Together) alliance ran neck-and-neck with new left-wing coalition NUPES in Sunday’s first round, with both scoring around 25-26 per cent of the popular vote.
Extrapolating from these figures, polling firms projected that Ensemble would win 225-310 seats in the second round of voting next Sunday, possibly short of a majority of 289 but comfortably the biggest party.
“We have a week ahead of us to mobilise,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told reporters. “One week to convince, one week to obtain a powerful and clear majority.”
She said that Ensemble “was the only political grouping capable of getting a majority.”
NUPES, a newly unified left-wing alliance of leftists, Socialists, Greens and Communists, was seen as winning 150-220 seats, a breakthrough that would make them the biggest opposition force in the National Assembly.
