Macron wins commanding parliamentary majority, estimates show

President Emmanuel Macron won a commanding majority in France’s parliamentary election on Sunday, pollsters' estimates showed, sweeping aside the mainstream parties and securing a powerful mandate to push through his pro-business reforms.

>>Reuters
Published : 18 June 2017, 07:03 PM
Updated : 18 June 2017, 07:03 PM

The result, if confirmed, redraws France’s political landscape, humiliating the traditional Socialist and conservative parties that alternated in power for decades until Macron’s election in May blew apart the left-right divide.

Two pollsters projected that Macron’s Republic on the Move (LREM) and its Modem allies would win 355-360 seats in the 577-seat lower house, lower than previously forecast.

A third poll by Elabe showed a far bigger majority, projecting 395-425 seats from the Macron alliance.

The three projections predicted the conservative The Republicans and its allies would form the largest opposition block with 97-133 seats while the Socialist Party, in power for the last five years, and its partners would secure 29-49 seats, their lowest ever.

Marine Le Pen, Macron's arch-rival on the far right, may get four to eight seats, they said.

The scale of the majority hands Macron, a pro-European Union centrist, a strong platform from which to make good on campaign promises to revive France’s fortunes by cleaning up politics and relaxing regulations that investors say shackle the euro zone’s second-biggest economy.

Voter turnout was projected to be a record low for parliamentary elections in the post-war Fifth Republic at about 42 percent.

The high abstention rate underlines that Macron may yet have to tread carefully with reforms in a country with muscular trade unions and a history of street protests that have forced many a past government to dilute new legislation.

France’s youngest leader since Napoleon, Macron emerged from relative obscurity to score a thumping win in the presidential election in May.

Having never held elected office, he seized upon the growing resentment toward a political elite perceived as out of touch, and on public frustration at their failure to create jobs and spur stronger growth to win the Elysee.

His year-old party then filled the political space created by the disarray within the Socialist Party and The Republicans, with Sunday night capping a sequence of events that a year ago looked improbable.

Moreover, the scale of LREM’s win means Macron will enjoy an absolute majority even without the support of alliance partner Francois Bayrou and Modem, lending him a freer hand for reforms and room for a government reshuffle should he chose. Modem currently has two ministers in the cabinet.