The News Agents French election analysis: 'A traumatic experience'

In brief...

• The National Rally (RN) initially led with 33.1% of the vote in the first French election vote, but ended up with only 143 seats after the second, while the left-wing New Popular Front coalition won 182 seats.
• Macron's Ensemble coalition lost its majority, resulting in a hung parliament, with unrest following the election results.
• Prime Minister Gabriel Attal emerged positively from the election, and a "centre-left" coalition is expected, though Jean-Luc Mélenchon is unlikely to lead due to his divisive nature.

Sacré bleu! France didn't see that coming.

When right-wing party National Rally (RN) won the first round of the snap French election with 33.1% of the vote, it looked likely to take power from Emmanuel Macron's Ensemble coalition.

Early French polls predicted Marine Le Pen and RN could claim between 230 and 280 seats in the French parliament after the results of the second round.

But that's not how things played out.

RN won just 143 seats, and while it was the single party with the most votes - 32%, it trailed behind those won by New Popular Front, a left-wing coalition formed by France Unbowed, Greens, Socialists, Communists and more, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which won 182.

Mélenchon told supporters that "a majority has made a different choice for the country" after the results were announced.

Jordan Bardella, who would have become Prime Minister under a National Rally government, referred to the New Popular Front win as the result of "dangerous electoral arrangements".

New Popular Front came together in the weeks after Macron called the election, and succeeded in its attempt to prevent the nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally taking power.

The election also swung to the left due to more than 200 candidates dropping out of key areas in order to let a more popular rival block National Rally candidates.

But despite this concerted effort, it now leaves France facing a hung parliament and fear of unrest, with violence breaking out on the streets of Paris after the results were revealed.

Despite most people reacting with surprise to the left-wing win, Emily Maitlis says it "shouldn’t be that much of a shock."

"We often see, as we did on Sunday, France doing this," she says.

"They go right up to the edge of bringing something that looks like fascism into power, then they back off.

"The first round is when they go: ‘I’m going to vote with my heart because I’m so angry I hate the lot of you’ and the second round is when they go: ‘Oh, not them’."

"National Rally has just gone up and up," says Jon Sopel.

"They are a real threat to what the future of the French republic looks like."

And while Macron’s centrist alliance placed second, Emily still believes the president's gamble, in calling the snap election, has paid off.

"He’s kept the one party he had his eye on out of power," she adds.

Angela Diffley, Affairs Editor and Anchor on new channel France 24 tells The News Agents that people found the whole election a "traumatic" experience.

"Macron also has really irked the population," she tells Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel.

"A lot of people see him as someone who has a bit of a superiority complex. Candidates didn't want his photo on the leaflets when they went around campaigning."

"It's certainly isn't as bad as everyone feared. He hasn't done well, he has lost a relative majority, and now we'll have to cobble together a reasonable second-place, centrist party with whoever will go in with them, but it's so unclear."

She says the one person who has emerged best from the election is Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who "single-handedly clawed this thing back and made it so that the centrist party came second and not way down the list".

He offered his resignation from the post after the election results, but said he would continue in the role for as long as he was needed.

Diffley now predicts "something centre-left" will emerge from the hung parliament, but adds Macron will want to keep both France Unbowed (far-left) and National Rally (far-right) out of government.

But, she adds, that "something centre-left" is unlikely to be led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a man she describes as "a champion of all kinds of identity politics", who may be too divisive a figure to become PM.

She describes Mélenchon as a "consummate political operator" and describes his victory speech as "epic" and "dramatic", adding that he shares politics with Jeremy Corbyn, the love of political performance with George Galloway, along with a similarity to Bernie Sanders.

"I think there'll be a lot of resistance on the left and even within his own party," says Diffley.

"He has a solid core of supporters who think he's great. But even most moderates are really fearful of him, and people who don't share his views would be outraged. I simply can't see that happening.

"It would just simply not wash. There would be uproar."

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