It's still difficult to assess the full consequences for France of the outcome of the European elections on Sunday, June 9. One thing is certain: The large victory of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) and the poor showing of the governing coalition will diminish France's influence in the European Parliament and, consequently, on the European stage.

With 13 seats, down from 23, President Emmanuel Macron's coalition has suffered a serious setback. The RN is set to have 30 MEPs, meanwhile. The liberal Renew group, of which Macron's coalition is the leading national delegation, has lost ground, but at this stage remains the third largest political force in the Parliament.

Valérie Hayer, the group's president who was also Mcron's lead candidate for the European elections, said, "Renew is a centrist and central force for forming a majority in the European Parliament," alongside the conservatives of the European People's Party (EPP) – the leading group, which emerged stronger from Sunday's vote – and the Social Democrats (S&D), who, for their part, limited the damage.

"France is weakened in the European Parliament," said Renew MEP Pascal Canfin, for whom "The challenge now is to keep the Renew presidency." Hayer knows she'll have to fight hard. "If we lose the group's presidency before the parliamentary elections, it would send out a very bad signal," explained a French diplomat.

Hayer will also be working hard to ensure that Renew is not overtaken by the group currently in fourth place, the far-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which brings together Giorgia Meloni's post-fascist party Fratelli d'Italia, Eric Zemmour's far-right Reconquête!, and Poland's Law and Justice party, PiS. ECR is contacting many parties that are not affiliated to any structure today – in total, about around a hundred MEPs – the vast majority of whom are nationalist.

To neutralize ECR's influence, Hayer is campaigning for a cordon sanitaire to be imposed on it, to deprive it of any position of responsibility within Parliament. Identity and Democracy (ID), another far-right group that includes the RN, is already subject to this.

But this battle is not won either. There is no consensus about this between Renew and the S&D. The EPP is opposed to it, even though it wishes to keep open the possibility of making alliances with ECR on a case-by-case basis when the center majority to which it belongs does not give it satisfaction.

The result of the European elections will not boost Macron's influence at the European Council table, where strategic decisions for the European Union are taken. The German chancellor, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, whose coalition also underperformed on Sunday, has also been weakened. "The European Council's center of gravity will shift to the right," said an adviser close to the Elysée, who pointed to the victory of Meloni in Italy and the liberal Donald Tusk in Poland.

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