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French elections: What happens next after Macron loses majority in parliament?

French president Emmanuel Macron has lost his majority in parliament - so what does all this mean and what happens now?

Published: 19 June 2022 21:27 CEST
Updated: 20 June 2022 08:32 CEST

French elections: What happens next after Macron loses majority in parliament?

France's Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, speaking after results showed that Emmanuel Macron had lost his parliamentary majority. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP

Results from the second round of voting on Sunday show that Macron’s centrist coalition Ensemble has won the largest number of seats in parliament – but not enough for a majority.

Ensemble has 245 seats – short of the 289 required for a majority – while the leftist coalition Nupes came second with 131 and Marine Le Pen’s far-right party got 89.

This doesn’t affect Macron’s position as president – he was re-elected in April and can remain in the Elysée until 2027 – but has huge implications for how his second term unfolds.

Of Macron’s 28-strong cabinet, 15 ministers were standing for election or re-election. Technically a minister who fails to be elected or re-elected as MP does not have to stand down from their ministerial role, but Macron has said that he expects any defeated ministers to stand down.

The health, environment and maritime ministers all lost their seats, but the rest of the cabinet remains intact.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne – standing as an MP for the first time – won her seat in Calvados, Normandy.

So what happens next?

Negotiations

Although Macron remains in place as president, any laws that he wants to pass – including very controversial reforms such as raising the pension age to 65 – have to pass through parliament, and within the two French parliaments the lower house, the Assemblée nationale, plays the most crucial role.

Deprived of an outright majority with Ensemble – an alliance of Macron’s La République en Marche party, centrists MoDem and Horizon, the new party formed by ex PM Edouard Philippe – Macron will need to create a group of like-minded MPs in order to pass any legislation over the next five years.

Macron, Borne and their team, will therefore begin negotiations to try and build a coalition in parliament.

Speaking on Sunday evening, Borne said: “We will work from tomorrow to build a working majority.”

They have the option of trying to build a permanent grouping, or govern as a minority, putting together alliances on a vote-by-vote basis.

The most likely candidates for alliance appear to be the MPs of the centre-right Les Républicains party (LR), although some have suggested that Macron will attempt to divide the Nupes leftist coalition and entice some of the more moderate MPs, such as the centre-left Parti Socialiste or Greens, into an alliance.

🔴 245 sièges pour Ensemble, 131 pour la Nupes, 89 pour le RN… Découvrez les résultats définitifs des #legislatives2022
➡️ https://t.co/JbvvAsZBvH pic.twitter.com/2jPJmDr8UR

— Le Parisien (@le_Parisien) June 20, 2022

The negotiations are likely to take some time and involve a lot of horse-trading.

However, they will need to have something in place by Tuesday, July 5th, as Jean-Luc Mélenchon has indicated that the Nupes alliance intends to table a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on that date.

New government

There will also need to be a government reshuffle to replace the ministers who lost their seats.

The current government was only formed in May, after Macron was re-elected in April, so it’s unclear whether Macron will simply fill the roles of the defeated ministers, or perform a more radical reshuffle to bring in ministers who reflect the views of the groups that he ends up in coalition with.

Campaign poster reading in French “Melenchon, Prime Minister” Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP

Mélenchon

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left La France Insoumise and the man largely credited with uniting four leftist parties into the Nupes alliance, had hoped to be named France’s next prime minister.

This now looks very unlikely, since his Nupes alliance has failed in its bid to be the largest party in parliament, an event that could have forced Macron into a ‘cohabitation‘, with Mélenchon as PM.

Mélenchon himself, at the age of 70, decided not to stand for re-election in his constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille) so is now technically unemployed, although he will doubtless remain influential as the leader of the second-largest group in parliament.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.