The results obtained by the electoral coalition led by the president of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, in the first round of the country's legislative elections on Sunday, leave the door open to a situation after next weekend's second round, in which the Ensemble (Together) alliance may fall short of an absolute majority in the National Assembly and thus the tenant of the Élysée palace might have to accept a government of a different sign, supported by a legislative majority other than his own. The complex French electoral system with its first and second rounds leaves all government options open, and until the seats are added up next Sunday night it will not be known whether the president has an absolute majority by a handful of seats, or, conversely, if France is to enter into political cohabitation. In any case, Macron's poor results in the first round are significant.
For the first time in the Fifth Republic a president elect has not obtained a legislative majority. The left-wing coalition, brought together under the moniker of the Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale (NUPES; in English, the New Social and Ecological People's Union) and led by veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who achieved a commendable third place at the presidential election this spring and was close to knocking Marine le Pen out of second spot, will now fight the decisive round in about 500 of the 577 constituencies into which the French electoral map is divided. In record time, Mélenchon has succeeded in placing his party, La France Insoumise (Insubordinate France), at the centre of power of the new left, following the seamless integration into the coalition of the once all-powerful French Socialist Party, which today is on its last legs.
As a new electoral consequence, the main opposition will be the left and not the extreme right of Le Pen. Something has moved on a French electoral map that has long been dominated by the same two rivals, until Mélenchon arrived to put an end to that. If it was already visible in the presidential elections that Macron was mainly winning because of the absence of an alternative, the legislative vote has confirmed that the president does not have the strength and momentum that a newly elected president needs to start a second term, and that only the political vacuum created due to Le Pen's strength catapulted him to the top. Macron's comfortable situation, then, may be over: we'll see next Sunday.
The low turnout has been worrying, with a record-setting percentage of 53% who didn't go to vote in the first round of the legislative elections. Abstention from voting is not just limited to the French and it should concern us all. On June 19th, regional elections will also be held in Andalusia, a community in which, unlike in France, a very good result is expected by the right, but as in the neighbouring country, the level of voter apathy causes great concern. Although winners always care little about the level of turnout because ultimately it has worked for them, the disinterest in the electoral process is an alarming fact. In France, voter abstention has grown continously since the 2002 legislative elections.