The French president Emmanuel Macron’s new centrist movement has won a large majority in the French parliament, taking 351 out of 577 seats.
The win will hand the new president a relatively free rein to
implement his plans to change French labour law, and overhaul
unemployment benefits and pensions.
But the results were tempered by a record low turnout of around 43%.
Abstention was particularly high in low-income areas, reopening the
debate about France’s social divide.
The traditional right and left parties that had dominated parliament
and government for decades saw their presence in the assembly shrink
significantly, confirming the redrawing of the French political
landscape that began when the Socialists and the rightwing Républicains
were knocked out in the first round of spring’s presidential election.
The French right, which only a year ago had believed the presidential
and parliamentary elections impossible to lose, was on track for its
worst parliamentary score in France’s postwar Fifth Republic. Les
Républicains and its allies were forecast to see their number of seats
shrink to around 125 – low, but higher than was forecast after the poor
first-round showing last week.
The Socialist party was the biggest loser, expecting to shed more
than 200 seats and hold only around 34 seats – again, better than
forecast, but still a drubbing. The party’s leader, Jean-Christophe
Cambadélis, immediately stood down.
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