French President Emmanuel Macron’s political alliance on Sunday lost majority in the National Assembly as a left-wing alliance and the far-right made major gains in the legislative elections, AFP reported.
The results will reduce the government’s ability to push through contentious policies and force it to look for new allies.
Macron’s Ensemble coalition is on track to become the biggest political grouping in 577-member National Assembly with 210 MPs to 260 MPs. However, it has been projected to fall short of the 289 seats required for a majority in the Lower House, according to a five French polling firms.
In the 2017 elections, Macron and his allies had secured 350 seats, reported The Independent.
The newly-formed left-wing alliance Nupes, headed by Jean-Luc Melenchon, is likely to emerge victorious in 149-200 constituencies, according to the projections. The National Rally party, headed by far-right leader Marine Le Pen, was on course to win 60-102 seats.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said that the result was “a risk for our country in view of the challenges we have to face”, Reuters reported.
“With the president of the Republic, we will work through dialogue and will listen to French citizens,” she said. “We have everything in order to succeed, and we will do so together.”
Melenchon said that the “rout of the presidential party” was complete and there was no clear majority in sight.
Le Pen said that the result was a historic one for her party and that the National Rally will by far send its highest number of MPs to the National Assembly, according to AFP.
In April, Macron had become the first French president in the past two decades to have won a second term in the presidential elections. However, the result was also the closest that the far-right had ever come to securing power in the European country.
Macron had won 58.55% of the popular vote and Le Pen 41.45%.
The president had said at the time that the citizens had made a choice for a humanist and ambitious project for the independence of “our country and our Europe”.
La Pen had said that she was already preparing for legislative elections, adding that she felt hopeful.
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