Analysis: France Between Domestic, Regional Dilemmas

Less than two months after his re-election, President Emmanuel Macron found himself deprived of a majority in Parliament, and facing multiple scenarios for governing France, after his alliance crumbled in the election against surges from the left and far-right.

According to analysts, the second round of the legislative elections ended with a "slap" or a "blow" to Macron, whose alliance retained only 245 out of 577 seats in the National Assembly, far from the absolute majority of 289 seats.

The vote witnessed an unprecedented progress for the far-right led by Marine Le Pen, his rival in the second round of the presidential elections, with 89 deputies, and the revival of the leftist side led by the far left represented by Jean-Luc Melenchon, which won 138 seats and who was a member of the National Assembly for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhone from 2017 to 2022.

Macron's alliance has the option of concluding a deal with other parties similar to the government consensuses in Germany.

After the results were announced, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said, "We will work as of tomorrow (Monday) to form a majority of work," after the results were announced, saying that "there is no alternative to this gathering to ensure stability."

"They will always find us trying to join us, in particular to persuade the moderates in this parliament to follow us," government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoire told France Inter radio Monday morning.

"We have campaigned in the opposition, we are in the opposition and we will remain in the opposition," said party leader Christian Jacob.

In the meantime, dissolution of the National Assembly may be the only way for Macron to control domestic politics, and many French analysts are going to believe that this is one way out of the French president's current political impasse, according to a report published by Al-Ain news website.

Keeping the government with a relative majority is very likely in the next stage, as Macron  keeps Borne, with a partial cabinet reshuffle, necessitated by the results of the second round of legislative elections, in which 3 ministers were defeated.

In another vein, the results of the parliamentary elections will limit Macron's efforts to give France a new geopolitical position in the world.

France witnessed the second round of legislative elections last Sunday, which gave a different political map, the first of its kind after World War II, with the emergence of new political forces and the decline of classical parties.

This development coincides with what France knows of losing the compass in its international position with the decline of its influence in Africa, especially the north of the continent, and the marginalization it suffers from by the Anglo-Saxon world. This internal political change will have its effects on the French situation internationally.

The change of the French political map internally coincides with a similar scenario that France is experiencing in its international relations by seeking a new geopolitical position among the greats and in the midst of current developments, especially as the world is moving to the stage of multipolarity, where France appears to be in an unstable situation compared to these major powers due to its loss of allies.

In the first place, it is marginalized by the powerful wing in the West, which is the Anglo-Saxon wing of the Washington-London duo, which enjoys great support from countries of the same geopolitical orientation, namely Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Among the marginalizations that France suffers from is its exclusion from the sale of submarines to Australia at the end of last summer, and Australia's choice of American submarines as an alternative. This exclusion is not limited to a commercial operation, but rather is an exclusion from the Equus plan to confront China in the Indo-Pacific, knowing that France has islands in the maritime region and China threatens Paris' influence strongly.

France loses its weight in the European Union during the major crises due to the alliance of Eastern Europe with London and Washington.

This is the scenario that is currently taking place in the Russian war against Ukraine, where powers such as Poland and the Baltic states went along with the American thesis of the need to escalate the war against Russia.

France, accompanied by Germany, is trying to create a kind of balance, which is reflected in the understanding with Russia about a future peace roadmap that provides security for Europe on the one hand, as well as Russian energy resources such as gas mainly.