The second round turned into a referendum on the Rassemblement National. The RN lost despite taking many more votes and seats than in the past, and France finds itself with a national assembly without an absolute majority.
As political scientist Giovanni Sartori pointed out, in the second round the winner is the one who gets all his own voters back to vote plus the voters of others, and Bardella and Le Pen failed to do this. The castling of “everyone against” the right worked, it crushed a possible victory of the RN. Macron was right about this, but France now depends on a political left that is much more radical than those of the rest of Europe. In particular, if Mélenchon’s France Insoumise is decisive for a majority between the left and Macronian centrists, the President will find himself hostage of a left-wing minority that tends towards communism, environmentalism, anti-Semitism.
Was it a good idea to go back to the polls? History will tell, but in the long run this vote could have also opened the way to power for the radical left. In the next presidential elections, in fact, it will be very likely that this new left will be a candidate in the runoff with the right. Now Macron must appoint a prime minister, very likely from the New Popular Front, and then find a very complex solution on the program. We will see if there will be a chance to broaden the majority to the moderate right of the Republicans, but the latter do not seem to have much interest in joining a majority dominated by the left, especially if the left-wing coalition and Macronians reach an absolute majority together as it seems.
In any case, it is a puzzle that is difficult to put together and that, beyond the fight against the right, has little to share. The history of political polarization in France has only just begun and it is not certain that the country will emerge stronger.
