Assembly faces a hung parliament and challenging negotiations to form
a government after a shock left wing surge blocked Marine
Le Pen's quest to bring the far right to power
. The leftist new popular front or NFP came out
top in the National Assembly after Sunday's election, no
single group got a working majority possibilities include a broad
unwieldy coalition or the NFP forming a minority government heralding
a period of political instability weeks before Paris hosts the
Olympics, the left won 182 seats. President Emmanuel
Macron's centrist alliance were on 168 and Le Pen's national
rally and allies had 143. The interior ministry data
cited by Le Monde newspaper showed Prime Minister Gabriel Attal
offered his resignation on Monday but Macron asked him to
stay on as caretaker to ensure stability. The political
group I represented in this campaign, even if it
scored three times more than what was predicted in recent
weeks, does not have a majority. And so
being loyal to Republican tradition and to my principles,
I will hand in my resignation letter to the president
. Thousands rallied against the far right after the exit
polls came in the results were a huge blow for
Le Pen's nationalist, Eurosceptic RN which placed third after
weeks of poll projections that it would win comfortably.
Eu officials breathed a sigh of relief that the immediate
threat of a far right government was averted. But
a messy coalition from a hung parliament could leave the
Euro Zone's second largest economy in limbo and post headaches
for European policy. And now what do we do
? Le Parisien asked on Monday summing up the bind
in which Macron finds himself. He called the snap
election after the far right trounced his ticket in the
European parliament elections last month. Green party leader Marine
Tonelli said coalition talks would take time. Social justice
won tonight. Environmental justice has won tonight. The
people won and it's only just the beginning. France's
parliament will be split between three groups with different platforms
and no tradition of working together.