France: seat distribution in the National Assembly 2022

According to figures from the French Ministry of the Interior, by the end of the second round of the 2022 legislative elections, Ensemble!, the party of the presidential majority (LREM and MoDem), had won 245 seats in the National Assembly, 105 fewer than in 2017. The Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale (NUPES) came in second with 131 seats, becoming the main opposition force, ahead of the National Rally, which won 89 seats, well beyond the 15 required to form a parliamentary group.

Government fails to win an absolute majority

The first round of legislative elections on June 12, 2022, already served as a warning to the presidential party. Although it came out on top with 25.75 percent of the votes cast, compared with 25.66 percent for the NUPES, the seat projections predicted a majority in the Assembly of between 255 and 295 seats. However, 289 seats were needed for an absolute majority. In the second round of voting, the government party fell far short of this, with Ensemble! winning only 245 seats. With this relative majority, the government will have to deal with other political parties to ensure that it votes for reforms or passes legislation, which will require institutional negotiations and a much less comfortable legislature.

A dissolution in case of blockage?

However, this is not the first relative majority in the Fifth Republic. Under the second presidency of François Mitterand, in 1988, the socialists had obtained only 275 seats in the legislature. This was enough to put an end to the period of cohabitation and to replace Jacques Chirac with Michel Rocard as Prime Minister, but the majority was still short of 14 seats and had to make concessions to both the Communists and the centrists. In a survey conducted shortly before the legislative elections, nearly two-thirds of French people, especially young people, wanted the opposition to represent the majority of deputies in the National Assembly and impose a cohabitation on Emmanuel Macron. If this cohabitation will not take place, the relative majority and the blockages it could cause could lead the president to turn to the option of dissolution. Article 12 of the Constitution states that in the event of political deadlock, the President of the Republic "may, after consulting the Prime Minister and the presidents of the assemblies, pronounce the dissolution of the National Assembly." While he may not dissolve the Assembly within one year of a new dissolution, there is no time limit specified after the election of a new Assembly.