In most parliamentary or semi-presidential systems, this situation would be nothing out of the ordinary and would lead to a classic democratic process: a representative of the leading political force (in this case, the NFP) would be called upon by the head of state to negotiate with the other political forces regarding the public policy agenda to be implemented and the distribution of ministerial posts.
If the first party proves unable to form a coalition government and/or secure the support of a majority in the National Assembly, the second party would be tasked with forming a government, and so on until an agreement is reached.
In France, it seems we just don’t know how to do it. With the exception of the leaders of the National Rally (RN), who have evidently accepted that they will not immediately join the government and are keeping their plans for the opposition vague, nearly all political leaders claim the legitimacy to form a government based on their own platform and seem unable to break free from the majoritarian culture that has taken hold under theFifthRepublic. None of the leaders appears willing to negotiate a coalition platform beyond their own bloc. Among the leaders of the Popular Front, few—such as the Green Party’s Marine Tondelier—acknowledge that the Popular Front’s platform will need to be revised to convince a sufficient number of lawmakers to support its implementation, or at least not to oppose it.
After criticizing Emmanuel Macron for governing without a majority and forcing through his reforms over the past two years, left-wing leaders do not seem to be considering any alternative form of government now that they themselves have a relative majority.
On the side of the former presidential majority, several leading figures have come out in favor of a coalition ranging from the MoDem to the Republicans, even though this outgoing coalition—which had only been slightly expanded—was rejected at the polls and would bring together about 240 members of parliament, placing it even further from an absolute majority than it was in the previous legislative session.
Emmanuel Macron’s “letter to the French people” is hardly constructive either. Admittedly, he calls for the formation of a “broad coalition […] of political forces that identify with republican institutions, the rule of law, parliamentarism, a pro-European orientation, and the defense of French independence.”
To that end, he is considering the possibility of a post-election coalition. However, by declaring that “no one has won” —even though the political landscape is highly tripolarized and the two winners of this election are the New Popular Front and the National Rally—he is slowing down the start of negotiations between the blocs.
This situation leaves foreign observers perplexed. A minority government that is unwilling to negotiate at least passive support from certain opposition forces seems doomed, at best, to legislative gridlock (due to a lack of a majority) and, at worst, to a premature end through a motion of no confidence.
Why and how is it that French political parties refuse to face the facts?
Examining how coalitions have functioned in France —since the governments of theFifthRepublic have almost always been composed of at least two parties—is helpful for understanding these reactions and putting the current situation into perspective.
If the role of coalitions is less significant than in other democracies, it is mainly because the two-round electoral system generally results in a single party securing a majority.
Since French politicians have always operated within institutions that produce absolute majorities—whether at the local or national level —they share a political culture that is inherently majoritarian and resistant to the compromises required by post-election coalitions.
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The electoral system encourages the formation of pre-election agreements in which the major parties allocate districts or seats to smaller parties. These agreements sometimes include policy provisions, but such cases remain rare. For example, in the agreement signed between the Socialist Party (PS) and the Greens ahead of the 2012 elections—which led to a coalition government—the policy aspect was pushed to the background as soon as François Hollande announced his 60 campaign pledges.
Once the elections are over, small parties are rarely needed to form a government. They join the coalition but have no leverage, since the majority would remain intact even if they decided to leave it. This is why, in 2014, the Greens left the government to oppose the appointment of Manuel Valls as prime minister—a move that had little impact. The executive branch continued to pass laws—often far removed from François Hollande’s own platform—without the support of the Greens.
The meager pre-election coalition agreements are thus not accompanied by any mechanism guaranteeing anything to the junior partners. For example, the Jospin government was able to break its promise to put a stop to privatizations despite the importance attached to this commitment by the Communist Party and the left-wing factions of the Socialist Party. Once in government, negotiations are kept to a bare minimum—even though things began to change between 2022 and 2024, due to a relative majority.
During our interviews with former ministers and leaders of small parties, they spoke ironically about their minimal room to maneuver, which was essentially limited to “drawing a few red lines” and addressing the “leader” of the majority when those lines were crossed to threaten to leave the government.
French political parties are therefore not accustomed to negotiating coalitions and compromises. Each bloc hopes to take advantage of majority-rule institutions to implement “its entire platform and nothing but its platform, ” as many NFP leaders have argued in recent days.
This approach persisted after the fragmentation of the French partisan system in 2017, which was marked by a highly tripolarized political landscape—including, since 2022, in terms of access to parliamentary seats. Thus, while Emmanuel Macron did not secure an absolute majority in the National Assembly in 2022, he relied on the tools for overriding parliamentary procedures provided by the Constitution (notably the famous Article 49.3) to push through reforms and budgets without majority support, rather than negotiating support in exchange for political concessions. In the absence of a majority of lawmakers willing to topple the government, the government continues to govern, and resentment builds.
Any government that relies on a single bloc will be very fragile and will have little chance of surviving. Governing sustainably will therefore require negotiating at least some points of agreement with the parties that will support the government in parliament—or, at the very least, will not oppose it.
By examining the forces at play, we can determine the scope of possible coalitions. Here, we have focused on the coalitions that political science—since the pioneering work of William Riker—has characterized as “winning” and “connected.”
Winning, because they hold an absolute majority of seats; connected, because they include parties that are adjacent on the left-right spectrum on which we have positioned them—the spectrum that has shaped political competition—and, more prosaically, the seating arrangement of members of Congress in the chamber—since the French Revolution.
This overview of possible coalitions should be viewed with caution, as it is based on the declared party affiliations of elected officials rather than those of their parliamentary groups—which will not be known with certainty until parliamentary sessions resume on July 18.
For example, all signs point to the Renaissance group potentially losing members from its left wing; similarly, the France Insoumise group could see departures linked to those of Clémentine Autain, François Ruffin, and other lawmakers sanctioned by FI.
In any case, each of the coalitions outlined below could lead either to a coalition government that would include all of its members, or—and it is important to keep this possibility in mind—to a minority government that would enjoy the support, without participation, of one or more of its members, as was the case during the previous legislative term with the LR group.
With that in mind, it becomes clear that the range of possibilities is limited. Three coalitions include the National Rally, a scenario that appears to have been ruled out by statements from representatives of the centrist and left-wing blocs.
Three other coalitions would involve a split within the NFP that would exclude La France Insoumise—a scenario that, for the moment, has also been ruled out by all NFP leaders. A final coalition includes the entire NFP but extends to the Renaissance deputies, several of whose leaders—such as Yael Braun-Pivet —have stated that they would refuse to govern with LFI.
None of the possible winning and cohesive coalitions had actually been discussed publicly at the time of this writing. Each would require compromises. A coalition ranging from LFI to Renaissance would mean, for Renaissance, agreeing to join a government in which the NFP holds a majority, and, for LFI, governing with the support of Macronists. Any coalition involving only parts of the NFP would mean splitting up this pre-election coalition, even though it was the strategy of unity that made this (very relative) electoral victory possible.
Finding a precarious but workable balance to govern the country is therefore no easy task. What might the milestones be?
First, the NFP, which can legitimately claim the leadership of the executive branch, must appoint a coalition builder—that is, a person tasked with negotiating the formation of a majority based on compromise—which cannot be viewed as a concession, given the country’s political situation, in which a significant number of members of Congress come from the outgoing majority.
Second, we must specify which programmatic elements are non-negotiable. This cannot be the entire NFP program—and nothing but the NFP program.
To take just one example, it is unlikely that the NFP will succeed in securing the simultaneous repeal of the pension reform and the immigration law, the reinstatement of the wealth tax, wage increases, a moratorium on mega-reservoirs, the climate plan, and the abolition of Parcoursup. Priorities will have to be set.
These priorities should include the rules and principles that underpin and shape the exercise of democracy in France. The adoption of a proportional voting system, for example, now enjoys fairly broad consensus within the political system—only the Gaullists seem irrevocably committed to the two-round majority voting system. Such a reform goal could form the foundation of a new majority.
In fact, this reform would seem to us to be the best possible path forward for a country as deeply divided as France, which is split into three roughly equal-sized blocs, even if the order in which they finish varies from election to election. In this context, only proportional representation can definitively rule out the possibility of the National Rally (RN) securing an absolute majority in the National Assembly—a scenario that would permanently alter the nature of French institutions.
La Ve The Republic grants the head of the executive branch disproportionate power. In the hands of politicians who call into question certain fundamental principles of the Republic and the rule of law, this power would provide far greater leeway—than in Italy, the United States, or Brazil—to drift toward an authoritarian regime. The only way to guard against this is to compel every political force, whatever its nature, to compromise and respect pluralism.
