Marine Le Pen is the big winner in France’s anti-Macron election

Emmanuel Macron has lost his absolute majority. The surprise winner was Marine Le Pen and her party, Rassemblement National, while the left alliance, Nupes, confirmed their place as the second-largest group, albeit with a less spectacular showing than the media and polls predicted. The latest results, as published by the interior ministry, counted 245 seats for Ensemble, 131 seats for Nupes, 89 seats for Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and 61 seats for Les Républicains. The results are a disaster for Macron, and raise many questions about how he can govern with two extreme parties on the right and the left as the strongest opponents in the National Assembly.

This vote was seen as an anti-Macron vote. He was re-elected as president, but voters used the legislative ballot to clip his powers, either by abstaining or by voting for the candidates of the opposition on the left and the right. The centripetal force of his neither-left-nor-right campaign that delivered him an outright majority in 2017 reversed into a centrifugal force this time.