Analysis: The president could be forced to cohabit with his most fervent opponent, Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Emmanuel Macron could be deprived of the parliamentary majority he needs to push through his five-year programme.Emmanuel Macron could be deprived of the parliamentary majority he needs to push through his five-year programme.Weeks after Emmanuel Macron entered the Elysée for aof office, French voters could decide to hamstring their newly re-elected leader by forcing him into a political “cohabitation” that would paralyse the country.
Manon Aubry, a member of the European party for La France Insoumise, said Mélenchon’s “make me PM” campaign has been effective. Narrowly knocked out of the presidential election on 10 April, Mélenchon, 70, conceded defeat and hinted he was ready to step back and let a new generation take over. “We were so close but … the younger ones will say to me, ‘We still didn’t win, but we weren’t far, eh? Do better,’ ” he said at the time. Nine days later, Mélenchon was back in fighting mood, describing the legislative vote as a “third round” and demanding voters elect him prime minister.
If no party achieves an absolute majority, each proposed legislative change submitted to the lower house would require the forging of alliances. Perrineau believes an absolute majority for Nupes is “completely impossible”. “Mélenchon pretends to believe it, he only hopes to be the first opposition group. Macron has just been chosen, the French aren’t so strategic as to deprive him the possibility of applying his policy,” he told French journalists.
Nupes needs at least 289 seats to win a parliamentary majority. The last period of “cohabitation” in France was 1997-2002, when the centre-right president Jacques Chirac was forced to appoint the socialist leader Lionel Jospin as prime minister after losing his parliamentary majority. .