Far-Right fails to win France

The surprise results in the French National Assembly elections have given a big boost to the Left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP or New Popular Front) and a leg up to President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble, a centrist group while inflicting an unexpected defeat on the far-Right National Rally led by Marine Le Pen.

Macron had called for snap polls after an upsurge by the far-Right in the recent European Parliament elections. The fractured verdict complicates the picture in Paris as no party has managed a simple majority in the Assembly.

The NFP, an alliance of the Socialists, Communists, Greens and France Unbowed, cobbled together just ahead of the elections, is itself a divided front that needs to cohabit with Ensemble to produce a government. However, the defeat of the National Rally and the recent landslide victory of the Labour Party in the UK will have an immediate impact on the course of politics in Europe.