The French parliamentary election of 2022: La malaise de Macron

The French parliamentary election of 2022 reached its conclusion last night at the end of the second round of voting, and just after Emmanuel Macron's re-election as President of France, delivered a telling blow to his grip on power.

M. Macron's alliance, Ensemble (dominated by La Republique-En Marche, but also containing the centrist parties of Territories of Progress, Democratic Movement, and Horizons) emerged as the largest alliance with 245 seats, but this represents a loss of 105 seats across those parties, with LREM alone losing 138 seats. Their heaviest losses came in the Pyrenees and in the Greater Paris region (i.e. Ile-de-France), the site of many a protest against M. Macron's reforms and against the severe lockdown restrictions during 2020 and 2021. This critically meant that Ensemble lost its majority in the French National Assembly, and cooperation from parties outside Ensemble is not forthcoming.

The New Ecologic and Social People's Union (NUPES), led by socialist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon of France Insoumisse (FI), was the most significant beneficiary of Macron's woes due to tactical voting in the second round. NUPES (including FI, EELV, PS, and the PCF) won a total of 131 seats, more than doubling the total of the sum of NUPES' constituent parties in 2017, including all 12 circonscriptions (constituencies) in the troubled Seine Saint-Denis department and the majority of overseas circonscriptions. Importantly in terms of needing to tackle the climate emergency, EELV won 27 of those seats, an increase of 26 compared to 2017. Although M. Melenchon is a rather divisive figure even by the standards of the French "left", progressive forces have clearly learned their lesson from the French Presidential election and will prove a strong opposition to Ensemble and M. Macron's attempts to push through further pro-free market social and economic reforms.

The racist right Rassemblent National (National Rally, formerly the French National Front) won 89 seats (an increase of 81 compared to 2017) despite the best efforts of tactical voting by moderates, almost entirely in circonscriptions far from major cities. In Ile-de-France RN won only 2 seats, but surprisingly it managed to almost sweep Var and Vaucluse on the Cote d'Azur, which whilst generally wealthier than the industrial north of France where RN was expected to make the most gains, is more homogenous than average and has a large retiree population, and is one of the most socially conservative areas of France. For similar reasons it managed strong gains in Occitanie near the Spanish border. Like the divides in the French Presidential election, the gains made by RN (and where they were concentrated) are symbolic of a rapidly polarising nation, rising wealth inequality and decreasing social mobility, and dissatisfaction with moderates during the global cost-of-living crisis. 

The moderate conservative faction, Union of the Right and Centre (UDC), dominated by Les Republicans (LR), had salt rubbed in their wounds from the French Presidential election. Despite making a few gains from Ensemble, their seat total (counting all constituent parties of UDC) was more than halved from 136 seats to just 61, holding out mainly in the more prosperous areas of northeastern France (e.g. Saint-Quentin in Aisne's 2nd constituency) and the most rural departments. In much of northeastern France it was eclipsed by RN, and many wealthier urban areas that would have been bankers for LR are now clearly in Ensemble's court, reminiscent of the Liberal Democrats' advances in many once safely Conservative urban areas in the United Kingdom; less than half of UDC's wins were in Ile-de-France or other major French cities such as Lyon and Bordeaux.

With the four largest players polling 81.38% of the votes between them in the first round, it is surprising that as many as 42 MPs elected to the French National Assembly were not from one of the four parties mentioned above, although many of them were supported by those four in local agreements.. These included 10 regionalists, mainly in Corsica but also for the first time a Breton regionalist in Morbitan's 4th constituency, although the winner in question, Paul Molac, was the incumbent having briefly served with LREM. Eric Zemmour's radical right Reconquiete party, being overshadowed the stronger RN, failed to win a single circonscription and even its sole MP, Guillaume Peltier, failed to make the second round in Loir et Cher's 2nd circonscription. None of the Independent Ecologist candidates who would not join or endorse EELV for one reason or another won any seats either.

Even though Ensemble is 44 seats short of a majority, it will likely maintain power in practice since no other party has a hope of gaining the required support necessary to nominate the next Prime Minister of France, and reliance on support from UDC could push Macronesque reform further in favour of the free market and a smaller state than anticipated, or at least block M. Melenchon's efforts to further reform in favour of a much greener and more progressive France.