PARIS —
French President Emmanuel Macron and
his allies were scrambling Monday for a way to avert political deadlock after
losing their majority in parliament, a stunning blow for the president and his
reform agenda.
اضافة اعلان
Macron’s Ensemble (Together) coalition emerged as
the largest party in Sunday’s National Assembly vote, but was dozens of seats
short of keeping the absolute majority it has enjoyed for the last five years.
A surge by the far right and wins by a united
left-wing destroyed the dominant position of Macron’s deputies, who for five years
had backed the president’s policies without fail.
The left-leaning Liberation daily called the result
a “slap in the face” for Macron, while the conservative Figaro said he was now
“faced with an ungovernable France”.
Macron’s Together alliance won 244 seats, far short
of the 289 needed for an overall majority, in a low-turnout vote that resulted
in an abstention rate of 53.77 percent.
Macron, who has not yet commented on the results,
met Monday with his embattled Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and two top
allies, former premier
Edouard Philippe and centrist leader Francois Bayrou.
The election saw the new left-wing alliance NUPES become the main opposition force along with its allies on 137 seats, according
to the Interior Ministry.
But it appears unlikely the coalition of socialists,
communists, greens and the hard-left France Unbowed will be able to retain
common cause in the legislature.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, the France Unbowed chief who
orchestrated the alliance, called its results “fairly disappointing” and
proposed Monday to make NUPES a permanent left-wing bloc.
He said it would not be a full-on merger but simply
an effective “alternative” force in parliament, though the offer was
immediately rejected by the three other NUPES parties.
Premier vulnerable?
Meanwhile the far-right
under Marine Le Pen posted the best legislative performance in its history,
becoming the strongest single opposition party with 89 seats, up from eight in
the outgoing chamber.
A confident Le Pen said her party would demand to chair
the National Assembly’s powerful finance commission, as is tradition for the
biggest opposition party.
“The country is not ungovernable, but it’s not going
to be governed the way Emmanuel Macron wanted,” Le Pen told reporters Monday.
Melenchon meanwhile said he would bring a motion of
no confidence against Prime Minister Borne in early July, when she is to lay
out her policy priorities for the next five years.
Borne, who was elected to parliament in her
first-ever political race, could now be vulnerable as Macron faces a new
cabinet shake-up after several of his top allies lost their seats.
His health and environment ministers were beaten and
by tradition will have to resign, as did the parliament speaker and the head of
Macron’s parliament group.
“For now the prime minister remains the prime
minister,” government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoire defiantly told France Inter
radio Monday.
“My fear is that the country is paralyzed.”
The outcome tarnished Macron’s April presidential
election victory when he defeated Le Pen, becoming the first French president
to win a second term in over two decades.
“It’s a turning point for his image of
invincibility,” said Bruno Cautres, a researcher at the Centre for Political
Research of Sciences Po.
‘A lot of imagination’
The options available to
Macron range from seeking to form a new coalition alliance, passing legislation
based on ad hoc agreements, or even calling new elections.
The most likely option would be an alliance with the
Republicans, the traditional party of the French right, which has 61 MPs.
But LR president Christian Jacob insisted that his
party intended to “stay in opposition”.
“We are entering into a period that is unprecedented
and uncertain,” Jean-Daniel Levy of Harris Interactive France told AFP. “There
is no readymade deal for a government.”
Macron had hoped to stamp his second term with an
ambitious program of tax cuts, welfare reform and raising the retirement age.
All that is now in question.
A prominent MP from Melenchon’s party, Alexis
Corbiere, said Macron’s plan to raise the French retirement age to 65 had now
been “sunk”.
In a rare bit of good news for the president, Europe
Minister Clement Beaune and Public Service Minister Stanislas Guerini — both
young pillars of his party — won tight battles for their seats.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
