The New Popular Front (NFP), a four-party left-green alliance, was the shock winner of Sunday’s French parliamentary election, returning 182 deputies to a 577-seat assembly now split between three large opposing blocs, none with a majority.
Here is a look at which parties make up the NFP, what it proposes, who its key figures are – and whether they may be able to continue to work together.
Which parties are in the NFP?
The largest is France Unbowed (LFI), led by the radical-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Founded in 2016, LFI is radical left and populist, believing that traditional parties and political organisations no longer serve democracy.
Second comes the Socialist party (PS), the mainstream centre-left party of François Mitterrand and François Hollande. Social democratic and pro-European, it was for decades the largest party of the French left, but scored less than 2% in the 2022 presidential election.
The French Green party (LE-EELV) is the latest iteration of a movement founded in 1984. It has had two spells in government, joining a leftwing alliance with the PS and Communists in 1997, when its then leader, Dominique Voynet, was environment minister, and another in 2012 under Hollande’s Socialist presidency.
The French Communist party (PCF), one of Europe’s oldest, was long the main force on the postwar French left and also served in Lionel Jospin’s PS-led government from 1997 to 2002. It still aims to “overcome” capitalism, but is pragmatic about doing it.
What is in the NFP’s programme?
While all four parties said they had made concessions, the NFP’s programme is heavily influenced by that of the radical-left LFI, including pledges that would significantly increase France’s already high public spending.
It promises to: reverse Emmanuel Macron’s controversial changes to pensions and return the retirement age to its pre-2010 level of 60 (from 64); raise public sector wages; link salaries to inflation; boost housing and youth benefits; cut income tax and social security for lower earners; and introduce a wealth tax for the rich.
NFP also aims to raise the minimum wage, fund 500,000 childcare places, cap the prices of essential foods, electricity, gas and petrol, boost green measures – including legislating for carbon neutrality by 2050 – and overhaul the EU’s common agriculture policy.
On foreign affairs, the alliance has said it would demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, recognise Palestine, “halt Moscow’s war of aggression” in Ukraine, keep supplying arms to Kyiv and “unfailingly defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people”.
How come it did so well?
The same four parties formed a similar pact, the Nupes, after the 2022 presidential election and before the subsequent parliamentary vote, winning just over 150 deputies as a result. It collapsed last year over personality clashes and major policy differences.
The NFP was cobbled together in haste after President Macron decided to dissolve parliament last month following his camp’s heavy defeat in the European elections, with the far-right National Rally (RN) polling at more than 30%.
While millions of left-leaning French voters will have cast their ballots willingly for NFP candidates, the alliance also benefited from the “republican front” that was thrown up after the first round of voting, won comfortably by the RN.
So as not to split the anti-RN vote in potential three-way runoffs, the NFP stood down 132 mainly third-placed candidates. But more than 80 centrists also pulled out in favour of NFP candidates, and many centrist and centre-right supporters then voted left to block the RN.
According to Ipsos, 54% of people who voted for Macron’s camp (Together) in the first round and 29% of those who voted for the centre-right Les Républicains (LR) switched to NFP when the alliance’s candidate was from the PS, Greens or Communist party.
Fewer made the switch when the NFP’s candidate was from the more radical LFI, but the numbers were still significant: 43% of Together voters and 26% of LR voters.
Can the alliance hold together this time?
Nupes collapsed mainly because of Mélenchon’s domineering and pugnacious character and increasingly radical stances, but also over deep policy differences regarding support for Ukraine, the war in Gaza – LFI has refused to call Hamas a terrorist group – and the EU.
The abrasive LFI leader, 72, had promised to take a back seat in the NFP but has seemingly been unable to so, demanding on Sunday that France’s next prime minister come from the alliance and implement “our manifesto, and only our manifesto” – without a majority.
He has even suggested he would quite like the job himself. But his frequent outbursts of rage, petty attacks on opponents, reflexive anti-US stance, Europhobia and – before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – frequent Moscow-friendly remarks have made him too toxic.
Mélenchon has also faced accusations of antisemitism, recently describing the attendees of a demonstration against antisemitism as “the friends of unconditional support of the [Gaza] massacre” and appearing to minimise antisemitism in France by describing it as “residual”. He denies the accusations.
Many of Mélenchon’s fellow NFP members cannot stand him, and LFI defectors who have abandoned the party over his bullying tactics and are now independent leftwing MPs, such as Clémentine Autain and François Ruffin, talk of him as “an obstacle” to the left.
Whereas Mélenchon and lieutenants such as Manuel Bompard have ruled out any form of coalition with the centre or centre-right and insisted there can be “no negotiation” on the NFP’s programme, other leading NFP figures, such as Raphaël Glucksmann, disagree.
Glucksmann, who headed the PS’s successful European parliamentary elections campaign, has echoed centrists in saying the election results demand an end to “confrontational, bloc-on-bloc politics” and a willingness to “talk, debate – and change France’s political culture”.
Which NFP faction may win and who could lead it?
Although LFI is the largest faction within the NFP, with 74 MPs, the other three parties together outnumber the radical-left party – the PS has 59 deputies, the Greens 28 and the Communists nine. They may not let themselves be pushed around.
Autain said on Monday that the LFI dissidents may try to form a separate political group within NFP, possibly with the Communists and some overseas and other nonaffiliated leftwing MPs, which could further weaken LFI’s position within the alliance.
The Socialist leader, Olivier Faure, said the NFP would aim to come up with a candidate for the post of prime minister by the middle of the week. Marine Tondelier, the Greens’ leader, said it could be a member of one of the four main parties but also “someone from outside politics”.
“The best method will be consensus, finding intelligent solutions collectively,” said Tondelier, one of the standout stars of the campaign. “If we want to govern, we have to be truly united.” It will not be easy without serious compromise.
• This article was amended on 8 July 2024. An earlier version said that the French Green party (LE-EELV) had only one previous spell in government, rather than two. This has been corrected.
