It's one of several surprises of this second round of legislative elections on Sunday, July 7: although the Macron camp has lost its majority in the National Assembly, it can be satisfied with being the country's second political force, thwarting all the predictions of the last three weeks. The presidential coalition, united under the Ensemble banner, is projected to win between 152 and 158 seats in the Palais-Bourbon, according to initial estimates by the Ipsos Talan institute for France Télévisions, Radio France, France 24/RFI and LCP Assemblée Nationale.
This score puts Emmanuel Macron's backers behind the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), who are given the lead (between 177 and 192 seats), but ahead of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) and its allies, which would have 138 to 145 seats.
The incumbent majority can be satisfied with this result: the most pessimistic projections had them down to 70 seats after the first round on June 30. Inter-round withdrawals, which reduced the number of three-way runoffs from 306 to 89, enabled them to avoid a major defeat.
The votes cast by left-wing voters were indeed favorable to the Macron camp, despite the virulent attacks on the NFP by some of the former majority's leaders. However, this unexpected result should not mask the defeat of the presidential camp. It has lost the relative majority it won in the 2022 legislative elections when the Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons parties won 250 MPs. The loss is heavy for the governmental coalition, which sees its troops dwindle by almost a hundred.
Renaissance, Macron's party, remains the main force in the self-proclaimed "central bloc," with a contingent of 95 to 98 MPs, compared with 169 today. With 25 to 26 seats, former prime minister Edouard Philippe exceeds the threshold of 15 elected members required to form a parliamentary group, and thus saves his group Horizons in the National Assembly, which had 29 members until the dissolution.
This prerequisite was essential for the former prime minister's campaign for the 2027 presidential election. François Bayrou's MoDem has also gotten by with retaining its group, estimated at somewhere between 32 and 34 MPs. However, it had 49 elected members during the last mandate.
With no force or party approaching the absolute majority required to reach the threshold of 289 MPs (out of 577), the presidential camp will be looking for allies to form the coalition it has been hoping and praying for, ranging from the Parti Socialiste to the right and excluding the RN. With this unexpected score, it can claim a decisive pivotal role within the new National Assembly.