French President Emmanuel Macron’s alliance got the most seats in the final round of the parliamentary election on Sunday, but it lost its parliamentary majority, projections show.
The projections, which are based on partial results, show that Macron’s candidates would win between 200 and 250 seats — much less than the 289 required to have a straight majority at the National Assembly, France’s most powerful house of parliament.
The situation, which is unusual in France, is expected to make Macron’s political maneuvering difficult if the projections are borne out.
A new coalition — made up of the hard left, the Socialists and the Greens — is projected to become the main opposition force with about 150 to 200 seats.
The far-right National Rally is projected to register a huge surge with potentially more than 80 seats, up from eight before.
Macron, 44, became in April the first French president in two decades to win a second term but he presides over a deeply disenchanted and divided country where support for populist parties on the right and left has surged.
He had appealed for a strong mandate during a campaign held against the backdrop of a war on Europe's eastern fringe that has curbed food and energy supplies and sent inflation soaring, eroding household budgets.
"Nothing would be worse than adding French disorder to the world's disorder," the president had said ahead of the second-round vote.
