President Emmanuel Macron made history in the French legislative elections on Sunday, just not in the way he hoped.
“This situation is a risk for our country given the challenges we are facing both nationally and internationally,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said. “The right compromises must be built to act for France.” Macron’s support base has shrunk after the past five years, with protests against his pension reform, social inequality and handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. His second term was already off to a rocky start, with allegations of sexual harassment against one of his ministers and criticism of the government’s policing doctrine after chaos at a football stadium sparked anger in the UK.
“The good thing is there are areas where they could agree, from the environment to public services to the need to engage citizens better,” said, a professor at Sciences Po, describing different ad-hoc configurations of the parties in the coming parliament. “The bad thing is they might just not want to agree.”