SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

‘Unprecedented situation’ – Macron loses majority in French parliament

Emmanuel Macron's prime minister will begin work on Monday trying to secure a coalition after his party lost its majority in the French parliamentary elections.

'Unprecedented situation' - Macron loses majority in French parliament
France's President Emmanuel Macron cast his vote during the second stage of French parliamentary elections at a polling station in Le Touquet, northern France on June 19, 2022. (Photo by Michel Spingler / POOL / AFP)

Macron’s centrist coalition Ensemble won 245 seats, making them the largest group but falling short of the 289 needed for a majority in the Assemblée nationale.

The left-wing Nupes alliance won 131 seats, while Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally made major gains and won 89 seats.

The final results were confirmed by the Interior Ministry in the early hours of Monday.

Macron’s Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne made a brief speech as the results came in, saying: “Tonight the situation is unprecedented.

“This situation constitutes a risk for our country, given the challenges that we have to confront,” she said in a televised statement, adding: “We will work from tomorrow to build a working majority.”

The result does not affect Macron’s position as president, but means he will find it difficult to pass laws without a majority in the Assemblée nationale. 

The Macron government has also lost several big names, as ministers including Health minister Brigitte Bourguignon and Environment minister Amélie de Montchalin lost their seats.

READ ALSO What happens next in France as Macron loses majority?

Key ministers in the Macron government admitted that the performance in parliamentary elections was “disappointing”.

The results are “far from what we hoped”, Budget Minister Gabriel Attal said on the TF1 channel, while Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told BFM television: “We’re in first place but it’s a first place that is obviously disappointing.”

Meanwhile the number two of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, hailed her party’s performance as a “tsumani”.

Macron and Borne – who won her seat in Calvados, Normandy – will to attempt to build an alliance over the next few days with centre-right (LR) and independent MPs in order to give him a majority in parliament.

The new left-wing coalition Nupes  – now the second-largest group in parliament – was formed in May after the left suffered a debacle in April presidential elections, and groups the centre-left Parti Socialiste, the hard-left La France Insoumise, Communists and greens.

The left only had 60 seats in the outgoing parliament.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party made huge gains after having only eight seats in the outgoing parliament.   

Turnout was again very low for the second round, where just 46 percent of people voted.

Several big-name Macron supporters have lost their seats, including Health minister Brigitte Bourguignon, Environment minister Amélie de Montchalin, former interior minister Christophe Castaner and Richard Ferrand, president of the Assemblée nationale.

Ministers who lose their seats as MP are not technically obliged to step down from their ministerial role, but Macron has said that they will be expected to do so. 

Damien Abad, the newly-appointed Disabilities minister who had been at the centre of a storm after he was accused of rape by three women, won re-election in Ain, northern France.

Europe minister Clément Beune – a Macron protege who was facing a very tight race in his constituency in Paris – beat the Nupes candidate by just 658 votes. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

POLITICS

French parliament backs bill against hair discrimination affecting black women

France's lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a bill forbidding workplace discrimination based on hair texture, which the draft law's backers say targets mostly black women wearing their hair naturally.

French parliament backs bill against hair discrimination affecting black women

Olivier Serva, an independent National Assembly deputy for the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe and the bill’s sponsor, said it would penalise any workplace discrimination based on “hair style, colour, length or texture”.

Similar laws exist in around 20 US states which have identified hair discrimination as an expression of racism.

In Britain, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued guidelines against hair discrimination in schools.

Serva, who is black, said women “of African descent” were often encouraged before job interviews to change their style of hair. Backers also say that men who wear their hair in styles like dreadlocks are also affected.

The bill was approved in the lower house National Assembly with 44 votes in favour and two against. It will now head to the upper Senate where the right has the majority and the vote’s outcome is much less certain.

‘Target of discrimination’

Serva, who also included discrimination suffered by blondes and redheads in his proposal, points to an American study stating that a quarter of black women polled said they had been ruled out for jobs because of how they wore their hair at the job interview.

Such statistics are hard to come by in France, which bans the compilation of personal data that mention a person’s race or ethnic background on the basis of the French Republic’s “universalist” principles.

The draft law does not, in fact, contain the term “racism”, noted Daphne Bedinade, a social anthropologist, saying the omission was problematic.

“To make this only about hair discrimination is to mask the problems of people whose hair makes them a target of discrimination, mostly black women,” she told Le Monde daily.

A black Air France air crew member in 2022 won a 10-year legal battle for the right to work with braided hair on flights after a decision by France’s highest appeals court.

While statistics are difficult to come by, high-profile people have faced online harassment because of their hairstyle.

In the political sphere they include former government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye, and Audrey Pulvar, a deputy mayor of Paris, whose afro look has attracted much negative comment online.

The bill’s critics say it is unnecessary, as discrimination based on looks is already banned by law.

“There is no legal void here,” said Eric Rocheblave, a lawyer specialising in labour law.

Calling any future law “symbolic”, Rocheblave said it would not be of much practical help when it came to proving discrimination in court.

Kenza Bel Kenadil, an influencer and self-proclaimed “activist against hair discrimination”, said a law would still send an important message.

“It would tell everybody that the law protects you in every way and lets you style your hair any way you want,” she said.

The influencer, who has 256,000 followers on Instagram, said she herself had been “forced” to tie her hair in a bun when she was working as a receptionist.

Her employers were “very clear”, she said. “It was, either you go home and fix your hair or you don’t come here to work”.

SHOW COMMENTS