French President Emmanuel Macron, the inveterate gambler, has won the right to keep playing.
In the final round of France’s snap parliamentary election, voters delivered an emphatic "non" to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, but only a hesitant "maybe” to her rivals on the left and in the center. The faintest contours of something approaching the new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s path are visible as Macron prepares to rally Greens and Socialists to his cause, but it will not be easy — and the broader risk is that fragmented politics in the eurozone’s No. 2 economy is here to stay.
Just as the snap election itself felt worthy of a Netflix drama, the results look even more so. Macron might allow himself a trademark wink of self-satisfaction at seeing arch-nemesis Le Pen trail the pack with an expected 143 seats. A tactical alliance in the second round between Macron’s centrists and the left-wing New Popular Front clearly worked to strengthen the so-called "republican front,” but Le Pen’s vague policies and her party’s inexperienced candidates also made it harder for her to win a bigger slice of the vote.
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