Emmanuel Macron left battered as voters turn to left-wing Eurosceptic Jean-Luc Melenchon

France: Mélenchon could 'rob' Macron of majority says expert

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Emmanuel Macron, 44, suffered a blow on Sunday after the French President’s centrist movement was left level-pegging with the radical left. The first round result could deprive Mr Macron of a majority in France’s parliament. Macron’s Together coalition was left narrowly trailing behind the New Popular Ecological and Social People’s Union, which is an alliance headed up by the 70-year-old Eurosceptic Jean-Luc Melenchon.

According to an estimate by Ifop, Mr Melenchon’s alliance and Mr Macron’s coalition both won 25.9 percent of the vote.

Commentators on the other side of the Channel suggest Mr Macron has been punished at the ballot box through a combination of inflation, the far from appealing Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and response to Real Madrid’s 1-0 victory over Liverpool in the Champions League Final at the Stade de France.

Inflation in France sits at 5.2 percent.

In comparison, inflation across the Eurozone reached 8.1 percent in May.

Dissatisfaction in the French electorate has also seen a record-level of abstention after more than 50 percent of voters stayed at home.

The French President now has just seven days to prevent a hung parliament.

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A hung parliament could leave Macron’s presidency at risk of horsetrading to get any measures approved during his second term at the Elysee Palace.

Unless a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, which is rare, the race goes into a second round next week, according to the Times.

The second ballot will include the top two candidates and anyone else who wins 12.5 percent of the vote.

Mr Macron will need to return 289 MPs in order to win a majority.

News channel France 2 has predicted Mr Macron could end up with between 255 and 295 seats while the left-wing alliance could elect 150 to 190 MPs.

Despite trailing Macron, Melenchon claimed the President’s movement had been “defeated” and urged voters to end “30 years of neoliberalism”.

However, budget minister Gabriel Attal, 33, tried to tarnish the radical left-winger over his Eurosceptic views.

Mr Attal claimed the second round would offer voters a clear choice between the President’s pro-European stance and Mélenchon’s desire to “distance [France] from the EU”.

The first round result comes just weeks after Mr Macron defeated National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, 53, for the second consecutive presidential election.

Mr Macron defeated Ms Le Pen by 59 percent to 41 percent.

However, the gap between the President and his far-right challenger shrunk drastically from Macron’s emphatic two-to-one victory in 2017.

Ms Le Pen’s party could be just shy of securing a significant number of MPs after the National Rally and its allies won just 19 percent of the vote.

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However, Ms Le Pen looks on course to return to Parliament as the MP for Henin-Beaumont after securing 55.4 percent.

She suggested France’s “sclerotic and anti-democratic” electoral system had deprived her party of returning a proportionate number of MPs.

Ms Le Pen added: “It’s important not to let Emmanuel Macron have an absolute majority.”

The far-right Reconquete alliance, which is led by 63-year-old polemicist Eric Zemmour, also took a meagre 4.3 percent of the vote.

Mr Zemmour’s party retreated slightly from the 7.1 percent he obtained in April’s presidential poll.

Mr Zemmour also suffered a personal setback after he failed in his attempt to become an MP in Saint Tropez.

The centre-right Republicans were also confounded to yet another difficult electoral showing after they received 11.4 percent.

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