France’s election results, in which a coalition of left-wing and centrist parties staved off the insurgent rise of the far right, are being celebrated around the world—from politicians, like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, to celebrities, including members of France’s national soccer team who are currently competing in the European Championship in Germany.
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00:00No one expected the result that we saw yesterday, the far right, the National Rally, was predicted
00:06to gain the most seats, falling short of the majority. Instead, it's the left bloc that
00:12won the most seats. Macron's centrist bloc came second and saved far more seats than
00:19again was predicted, and the National Rally came third. So that was a huge surprise, and
00:25I think for anyone not familiar with the French system, it might be puzzling to understand
00:30how the far right went from winning the first round on the brink of power to losing and
00:40having not as many seats as was anticipated. And the answer to this is this is what can
00:46happen with a two-round electoral system, especially with a strong Republican front.
00:53Now, this is key to understand what happened yesterday. The Republican front means tactical
00:57voting against the far right. It looked tired in 2022, with many voters not willing anymore
01:06to yet again vote against as opposed to for a candidate. But it came back with a vengeance
01:12this time, and that's the main lesson of yesterday, that the Republican front is alive and kicking,
01:20and it explains why the National Rally did not win. And I would say it really shows that
01:27despite the far right being normalized and mainstreamed, it still remains perceived as
01:35a danger by enough voters who mobilized to defeat the far right, to block the far right
01:44from getting power. So that's the main takeaway from yesterday. The victor was not the left
01:52bloc. The real victor is the Republican front. As for Macron, he will feel relieved, first of all,
01:59that the far right is not in power. They won't have to have a cohabitation with the far right.
02:04That he limited the damage because his centrist bloc came second and didn't lose as many seats as
02:12was predicted. However, his gamble to dissolve the National Assembly has spectacularly failed.
02:20He wanted clarification from the electorate. He has got an even more fragmented Assembly than the
02:26one before. He wanted to divide the left. That didn't work. He thought that the vote for the
02:34far right was a protest vote. It's not. It's a conviction vote. He had power. He had authority.
02:41He had a united party. He had a relative majority. Yes, it was difficult, but he still managed to
02:46pass key reforms. And now all that is gone. Even his party is turning against him, as we saw in
02:53yesterday's prime minister's address. So he's lost everything, really. He instigated his own
03:00effacement, his own erasure. And the power now will be in the National Assembly and not with him.
03:06So what's next? I generally don't know. I don't think anyone in France knows.
03:11For very simple reasons, there is no absolute majority for anyone. And if you look at the left
03:17bloc, yes, they won the most seats, but they are roughly 80 to 90 seats short of an absolute
03:24majority. That means they will have to find someone to govern with. They can't do it on their
03:31own. They can't say, we won the election, make me prime minister and we will implement our
03:38programme. They might say this, but the arithmetic reality means that they can't do it because they
03:46don't have enough. They don't have an absolute majority. So it will either be a coalition.
03:54The questions here are who is on which programme? What type of coalition? We might end up with a
04:01technical government where you put in charge a consensual figure and you wait for a year until
04:07the next dissolution because that's the problem. You cannot dissolve the National Assembly for
04:13another year. So even if Macron decided to resign and we have a new president, you will still get
04:20the same National Assembly. So what's going to happen? I generally don't know. I don't think
04:26anyone knows. And the next days, the next weeks, we are going to see a lot of chat, formal, informal
04:32between parties. And we're going to see whether or not they manage to somehow cobble together
04:39a coalition, bearing in mind that France is not known for its consensus culture. So it's going
04:46to be really interesting. But right now it's blocked. There's a gridlock and we need to see
04:53whether some kind of key can be found to unlock it.