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      Macron Loses Absolute Majority in Parliament as Opposition Surges

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      For the first time in 20 years, a newly-elected French president failed to win an absolute majority in Parliament, forcing President Macron to deal with a defiant left and a resurgent far-right.PARIS — Voters in France’s legislative elections dealt President Emmanuel Macron a serious blow on Sunday as his centrist coalition lost its absolute majority in the lower house of Parliament to a resurgent far-right and a defiant alliance of left-wing parties, complicating his domestic agenda for his second term.With all votes counted, Mr. Macron’s centrist coalition won 245 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament. That was more than any other political group, but less than half of all the seats, and far less than the 350 seats Mr. Macron’s party and its allies won when he was first elected in 2017.For the first time in 20 years, a newly elected president failed to muster an absolute majority in the National Assembly. It will not grind Mr. Macron’s domestic agenda to a complete halt, but will likely throw a large wrench into his ability to get bills passed — shifting power back to Parliament after a first term in which his top-down style of governing had mostly marginalized lawmakers.Mr. Macron’s government will likely have to seek a coalition or build short-term alliances on bills, but it was unclear Sunday night how it might go about doing so.The results were a sharp warning from French voters to Mr. Macron, who just months ago convincingly won re-election against Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader. “The Slap” was Monday’s headline on the front page of the left-leaning daily Libération.Élisabeth Borne, Mr. Macron’s prime minister — who won her own race in Normandy — said on Sunday that the results were “unprecedented” and that “this situation constitutes a risk for our country, given the challenges we must face.”“Starting tomorrow we will work on building a majority of action,” she said, suggesting, without giving details, that the government would work with other political parties to “build good compromises.”Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne gives a speech after initials results in the parliamentary elections, at Matignon Palace in Paris Sunday.Pool photo by Ludovic Marin/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Macron appeared disengaged from the parliamentary elections and did little campaigning himself, seeming more preoccupied by France’s diplomatic efforts to support Ukraine in its war against Russia — which Sunday’s results should not impact, as French presidents can conduct foreign policy mostly as they please.Speaking on an airport tarmac before a trip to Eastern Europe that took him to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, this past week, he had urged voters to give him a “solid majority” in the “superior interest of the nation.”But many French voters chose instead to either stay home — only about 46 percent of the French electorate went to the ballot box, according to projections, the second-lowest participation level since 1958 — or to vote for Mr. Macron’s most radical opponents.Several of Mr. Macron’s close allies or cabinet members who were running in the election lost their races, a stinging rebuke for the president, who had vowed that ministers who failed to win a seat would have to resign. Richard Ferrand, the president of the National Assembly, and Amélie de Montchalin, his minister for green transition, were both defeated.“We disappointed a certain number of French people, the message is clear,” Olivia Grégoire, a spokeswoman for Mr. Macron’s government, told France 2 television on Sunday.“It’s a disappointing first place, but it’s a first place nonetheless,” she said, adding that Mr. Macron’s coalition would work in Parliament with “all those who want to move the country forward.”Final results gave the alliance of left-wing parties — which includes the hard-left France Unbowed party, the Socialists, Greens and Communists, and is led by the leftist veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon — 131 seats, making it the biggest opposition force in the National Assembly. The National Rally, Ms. Le Pen’s far-right party, secured 89 seats, a historic record.Jean-Luc Melenchon in Paris on Sunday.Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesÉtienne Ollion, a sociologist teaching at École Polytechnique, said Sunday’s results were “a double surprise.”“It’s the absence of an absolute majority — we saw it coming but did not expect it to be at that level — and on the other hand it’s the strong breakthrough of the National Rally, which is quite spectacular,” he said.With a slim relative majority — the smallest in France’s 63-year-old Fifth Republic, according to Mr. Ollion — and a strong opposition on the left and on the far-right, Mr. Macron’s centrist coalition could struggle to pass bills, potentially forcing him to reach across the aisle to opposing lawmakers on some votes.“The way the president will be able to govern through his prime minister is rather uncertain at the moment,” Mr. Ollion said.It was not immediately clear what other allies Mr. Macron’s coalition might find to form a working majority, although it seemed that the most likely fit would be Les Républicains, the mainstream conservative party, which won 61 seats.Mr. Macron will also be much more dependent on his centrist allies than he was during his first term, especially to pass contentious projects like his plan to raise the legal age of retirement to 65 from 62. That could give more leverage to parties like Horizons, a center-right group founded by Mr. Macron’s former prime minister, Édouard Philippe, who is more of a fiscal hawk. Horizons is expected to win about 25 seats.“We are used to seeing France’s system as centered on the presidency” because it is the most powerful political office in the country, said Olivier Rozenberg, an associate professor at Sciences Po in Paris. But “these legislative elections remind us that our political system is also a parliamentary one at heart.”Mr. Mélenchon and Ms. Le Pen both said on Sunday that they had succeeded in disrupting Mr. Macron’s second term.“The presidential party’s defeat is complete,” Mr. Mélenchon told cheering supporters in Paris. “We reached the political objective that we had set for ourselves.”Mr. Mélenchon failed to achieve his initial goal, which was to seize control of the National Assembly and force Mr. Macron to appoint him prime minister. Major policy differences among coalition members on issues like the European Union could also resurface once the lower house reconvenes later this month.Still, it was a strong showing for left-wing parties that had been largely written off as hopelessly divided during the presidential elections.At the other end of the political spectrum, Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally won many more seats than the handful it has now, and far more than was expected after Ms. Le Pen was defeated by Mr. Macron in the presidential election in April, and then ran a lackluster campaign for the parliamentary one.Ms. Le Pen herself was handily re-elected to her seat in a district in northern France.Marine Le Pen in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, on Sunday.Denis Charlet/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“This group will be by far the largest in the history of our political family,” she said in a speech on Sunday, promising her supporters that she would defend the party’s hard line on immigration and security.Mr. Macron’s predicament is not unique in modern French history. In 1988, under President François Mitterrand, the Socialist Party was also unable to muster an absolute majority in the National Assembly, forcing it to occasionally poach lawmakers on the left or on the right to pass bills. But that government also had access to tools — like the ability to force a bill through without a ballot, by exposing the government to a confidence vote — that are now far more restricted.Sunday’s vote was also marred by record low turnout, a warning sign for Mr. Macron, who has promised to rule closer to the people for his second term, and a testament to voters’ growing disaffection with French politics.“There is a representation problem,” said Aude Leroux, 44, who lives in Amiens, Mr. Macron’s hometown in northern France, and shunned the ballot box on Sunday.Ms. Leroux, who was heading over to clothing stalls in one of Amiens’ large open-air markets, said she felt like “the most important matter is already settled,” with the end of the presidential race.But Sunday’s result may prove her wrong, as Mr. Macron could be forced into making compromises to pass bills and as opposition forces are expected to control key committees, such as the powerful finance committee that oversees the state budget.“Incredible opportunities will come your way,” Mr. Mélenchon told his leftist lawmakers on Sunday. “You have at your disposal a magnificent fighting tool.”Adèle Cordonnier More

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      France’s Far Right Wins Record Number of Seats in Parliament

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      PARIS — The French far right was projected to win a record number of seats in the election on Sunday, which could make it the third biggest political force in Parliament. It will also secure enough seats to form a parliamentary group for the first time since the 1980s, reflecting its solid political foothold and highlighting the success of Marine Le Pen’s longtime efforts to moderate her party’s image.Ms. Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, was expected to win between 75 and 100 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, according to preliminary projections. The party needs to secure only 15 seats to become a parliamentary group, a designation that would give it more public funding and speaking time, and specific legislative powers such as creating special committees.That result came despite a lackluster legislative campaign by Ms. Le Pen.After her loss to Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election in April, Ms. Le Pen all but disappeared from the political stage, resurfacing only in May to acknowledge on television that Mr. Macron would most likely secure a majority in Parliament — indirectly conceding defeat in advance.For several weeks, the National Rally campaigned without any real leadership, failing to drive the public debate around its favorite themes of economic insecurity, immigration and crime. Instead, much of the momentum has been with a coalition of left-wing parties that managed to overtake the far right as the main opposition force to Mr. Macron.Still, Ms. Le Pen’s party secured about 19 percent of the vote in the first round of the parliamentary elections last week, about a six-point increase from five years ago, allowing 208 of its candidates to advance to a runoff, up from 120 in 2017.And the seats the National Rally was expected to capture on Sunday will be a significant increase from the eight seats it currently holds.“This group will be by far the largest in the history of our political family,” Ms. Le Pen said in a speech on Sunday.She added that her party had achieved the three objectives it had set itself: to prevent Mr. Macron from securing an absolute majority; to continue restructuring France’s political landscape; and to build a strong opposition group.Forming an official group in Parliament is crucial for the National Rally, which has long struggled financially, and will help raise its profile. The last time the far right secured such a group was when Jean-Marie Le Pen, Ms. Le Pen’s father, led 35 lawmakers into Parliament in 1986.The legislative elections this month have also cemented Ms. Le Pen’s overwhelming dominance on the right of the political spectrum. Éric Zemmour, a far-right pundit and her main competitor during the presidential election, was knocked out in the first round, as were all of his party’s candidates. More

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      Are Traditional Political Parties Dead in France?

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      Presidents, prime ministers, Parliament — France’s mainstream left and right-wing parties used to have it all. In the first round of April’s presidential elections, they got less than 7 percent of the vote.PARIS — Since the 1950s, France’s traditional left- and right-wing parties have provided three-quarters of the country’s presidents and nearly all of its prime ministers.Parliament has also swung from one to the other in alternating waves of pink, the color associated with the Socialist Party or its predecessors, and blue, which represents the main conservative party, known today as Les Républicains.But in this month’s presidential election, candidates for both parties cratered.In the first round of voting, Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, got only 1.75 percent of the vote. Valérie Pécresse, the Républicain candidate, got 4.78 percent, far less than the 2017 candidate for her party, François Fillon, who garnered 20.01 percent — even after a scandal involving a no-show job for his wife.Both Ms. Hidalgo and Ms. Pécresse were unceremoniously knocked out of the race.President Emmanuel Macron, whose centrist party was created just six years ago, then battled Marine Le Pen, of the far-right National Rally party, and won a second term.The stark collapse of the Socialists and Les Républicains capped a yearslong downward spiral for both parties, which have struggled to persuade voters that they could handle concerns including security, inequality and climate change, experts say.Supporters of Valérie Pécresse, the presidential candidate for Les Républicains, watching the results of the first round of the presidential election in Paris, on April 10.Adnan Farzat/EPA, via ShutterstockThe old left-right division has given way to a new landscape, split into three major blocs. Mr. Macron’s broad, pro-globalization center is now flanked by radical forces: on the right, Ms. Le Pen and her anti-immigrant nationalism; on the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a fiery politician who champions state-led policies against E.U. rules and the free market.Many now wonder what will remain of the former stalwart political parties.“Before, there was the left, the right — that was clearer,” said Jeanette Brimble, 80, speaking recently on a narrow cobblestone street in the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence. For decades, she voted for mainstream conservatives. This time, pleased by Mr. Macron’s shift rightward, she cast a ballot for him.The downfall of the traditional parties, Ms. Brimble said, was “a bit disturbing for my generation.”In 2017, Mr. Macron’s first election landed an initial blow to the system, shattering the left. With the vote this month, the right is feeling the damage.Mr. Macron is set to be in office until 2027 — French law limits presidents to two consecutive terms. After that, it is unclear whether the traditional parties will be able to rebound.Dominique Reynié, a political analyst who heads the Foundation for Political Innovation, a research institute that focuses on European and economic policy, said a departure from politics by Mr. Macron “would give the traditional governing parties a chance to get back into the game.”But some expect volatility instead.“I don’t believe that traditional parties are going to be reborn on the ashes of La République en Marche,” said Martial Foucault, director of the CEVIPOF political research institute at Sciences Po in Paris, referring to Mr. Macron’s party. In France’s increasingly personality-driven politics, disillusioned voters could shift from one charismatic leader to another, regardless of party affiliation, he said.“Citizens want efficiency,” he added. “So they are prone to these electoral movements, effectively leaving the system in total turbulence.”Mr. Macron, whose policies have straddled the left and right, is scheduled to be in office until 2027.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIn Aix-en-Provence, a city of 145,000 that has long leaned right, the collapse was striking. Five years ago, Mr. Fillon came in first there with 27.45 percent of the vote. This month, Ms. Pécresse came in sixth with 5.5 percent.Nationwide, the Elabe polling institute found that roughly a third of those who had voted for Mr. Fillon in 2017 chose Mr. Macron this time, versus only a quarter for Ms. Pécresse, Mr. Fillon’s successor as the candidate of Les Républicains. Even Nicolas Sarkozy, the party’s last French president, from 2007 to 2012, didn’t endorse her.In a particularly humiliating turn of events, Ms. Pécresse came in fourth behind Mr. Mélenchon in Versailles, the bourgeois Parisian suburb that she once represented in Parliament. Ms. Hidalgo, who has been mayor of Paris for over eight years, got only 2.17 percent of the capital’s vote.Financial concerns compound the embarrassment.Presidential candidates can get a state reimbursement of up to 8 million euros for funds that they personally contribute to their campaigns. But the amount is much lower — 800,000 euros, or about $865,000 — if they get less than 5 percent of the vote.Mainstream candidates long considered 5 percent a low bar, allowing them to take out loans with the assurance that a large chunk of their expenses would be reimbursed once they cleared the threshold. But Ms. Pécresse, now personally in debt for €5 million, has been forced to appeal for donations.“At stake is the survival of Les Républicains, and beyond that, the survival of the republican right,” she said. (So far she has collected €2 million.)A poster of Ms. Pécresse lying on a street in Marseille, southern France, on April 6.Daniel Cole/Associated PressBoth the Socialists and the Républicains failed to capitalize on anger against Mr. Macron, who wooed voters with sweeping promises of pragmatic centrism but whose first term was divisive. Mainstream parties have struggled to address issues like immigration, security, inequality or climate change, experts say, partly because Mr. Macron has cherry-picked from their platforms, especially on the right.Alix Fabre, who voted for Mr. Fillon in 2017 before turning to Mr. Macron, said in Aix-en-Provence that the president’s pro-business policies and those of the mainstream right felt similar.“Most people around me are from the right, and they’ve joined Macron,” she said.Experts also see a deeper disconnect, saying that both parties grew complacent in the belief that their turn in office would always come again. Fixated on internal quarrels and hemorrhaging dues-paying members, they lost touch with ordinary citizens, failing to harness movements like the Yellow Vest protests, experts said. They have also been unable to offer convincing alternatives to more radical forces like Ms. Le Pen.“It’s a constant, lasting failure to represent social conflict,” said Mr. Reynié, the analyst. For Mr. Foucault, of the CEVIPOF, “these parties haven’t understood what citizens are asking of them, in terms of renewing their platforms and their ideology.”Ms. Hidalgo, center, has been the mayor of Paris for more than eight years, yet only got 2.17 percent of the vote there in the presidential election.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen’s parties have issues too. Few see La République en Marche outlasting Mr. Macron’s political ambitions. The National Rally has been a Le Pen family affair for decades, marked by eight defeats in presidential elections.France’s traditional political forces still control many cities and other local or regional offices, where voters are more likely to trust familiar faces with day-to-day concerns.In 2021, Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen’s parties failed to win a single one of France’s 13 mainland regions, although Mr. Foucault said appearances were slightly misleading, because without American-style midterm elections, the French only have local elections to voice discontent with the government.Corinne Narassiguin, a top Socialist official, said that her party’s disastrous results at the national level marked “the end of a cycle” that started in 2017, after which the party was forced to sell its headquarters in an upscale Paris neighborhood and move to the suburbs.“Voters have made it clear that we’re no longer able to tell them why they should vote for the Socialists at the national level,” she said.The Socialists and the Républicains are now scrambling to shore up support ahead of the legislative elections in June, which will fill all seats in France’s lower house of Parliament. But both face serious challenges.The Socialists, whose strength in Parliament has already shrunk, could end up with even fewer lawmakers as Mr. Mélenchon’s party gains prominence. The Républicains are torn between those favoring an alliance with Mr. Macron’s party, those wanting to stay independent, and those leaning toward Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant pundit who also ran for president.Marine Le Pen, who battled Mr. Macron for the presidency, earlier this month in Paris.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMarie Ronzevalle, 29, who works in event management in Aix-en-Provence, voted for Mr. Macron in 2017 — she liked his vow to “break with traditional codes” — but was disappointed by some of his policies and picked Ms. Hidalgo in the first round this year.She said that her family struggled to pick a candidate in this election — unlike her now-deceased grandmother and great-grandmother, loyal Socialists who worked for the party.One of her grandfathers, who always voted for the mainstream right but strongly hesitated this time, even briefly considered a blank ballot.“There is less of that feeling of belonging and automatically giving your vote to a party,” Ms. Ronzevalle said. “People are sick and tired of being asked to fit into a box.”“They want to see things change,” she added. “But maybe the old parties are no longer the solution.”Aurelien Breeden More

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      Emmanuel Macron Tries to Reinvent Himself After Re-election

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      France seems in search of a kinder, gentler, greener President Macron. He says he will listen.PARIS — There have been many Emmanuel Macrons: the free-market reformer, the man who nationalized salaries in response to the pandemic, the provocateur who pronounced NATO brain-dead, the maneuverer ever adjusting his position, the diplomat and the disrupter.Now, having persuaded the French to re-elect him, something no president had achieved for two decades, which Mr. Macron will show up? To judge by his sober acceptance speech after his 17-percentage-point victory over Marine Le Pen, a chastened one.There was nothing triumphalist about his tone after vanquishing the extremist anti-immigrant far right and, for the second time, rebuffing the wave of nationalist jingoism that produced Brexit and the victory of President Donald J. Trump.Rather, Mr. Macron expressed a quiet determination to break with past habits, confront the “anger and disagreements” in the land, and to reach out to the many people who had only voted for him to keep out Ms. Le Pen.“He will want to democratize his authority and soften it,” said Alain Duhamel, the author of a book about Mr. Macron. “No metamorphosis in his personality, but there will be an adjustment in his methods.”Mr. Macron said his second term would not be “the continuation of the five years now ending”; it would involve a “reinvented method” to “better serve our country and our youth.” The years ahead, he said, “will not be tranquil, but they will be historic, and we will write them together for the generations to come.”Mr. Macron on the campaign trail in the French seaport city of Le Havre this month.James Hill for The New York TimesAmbitious words, and Mr. Macron, a centrist, is never at a loss for a fine phrase, but what they will mean is uncertain. It is clear, however, that the 13.3 million people who voted for Ms. Le Pen constitute far too large a group to be ignored.For now, the president’s priority is to display compassion. He wants to bury once and for all the image of himself as “president of the rich,” and show he cares for the working class and for all the angry or alienated people drawn not just to Ms. Le Pen’s nationalist message but also to her promise to give them economic helpThe numbers were clear. About 70 percent of affluent voters supported Mr. Macron; about 65 percent of the poor voted for Ms. Le Pen. The college educated voted for Mr. Macron; those who did not complete high school tended toward Ms. Le Pen.Among the measures that Mr. Macron may introduce early in his second term are a rebate on gasoline for people who have to drive long distances every day, substantial raises for hospital workers and teachers, and an automatic adjustment of pensions in line with rising inflation.“We have to listen better,” Bruno Le Maire, the economy minister, said in an interview with Franceinfo radio. That is, listen to those left behind in an economy with a growth rate of 7 percent.Among those Mr. Macron will need to listen to are the young. While some 70 percent of people aged 18 to 24 voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a leftist candidate with a bold green agenda, in the first round of the election, about 61 percent transferred their allegiance to Mr. Macron in the second round, after Mr. Mélenchon was eliminated.Watching the presidential candidates square off in a televised debate on Wednesday in Paris.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIf Mr. Macron is serious about engaging with those whose support of him was reluctant — a second choice, a vote against something rather than for something — he will need to demonstrate a serious commitment to a post-carbon economy, having spent his first term on what often seemed like hesitant half measures.In his victory speech he promised to make France “a great ecological nation.” That will require major investment, a timeline and help for those transitioning to relatively expensive electric cars.The road ahead is full of potential obstacles. Legislative elections in June could deliver a National Assembly no longer fully controlled by his party, which would complicate any second-term agenda. In an unlikely worst case, Mr. Macron may have to endure a “cohabitation” — work with a prime minister from a rival party — and that is by no means a guarantee of happiness.Whether Mr. Macron can lastingly adopt a less abrasive manner is uncertain. Mr. Duhamel described the president as a self-invented man “in perpetual motion” and always on the offensive, someone who can “never be confined to a box,” a leader given to ever-changing balancing acts — not least between left and right.His opponents have often found this agility confounding; others have seen in it a malleability so extreme that it poses the question of what Mr. Macron really believes in.Macronism, as it is called here, remains something of a mystery. What cannot be disputed after this second victory is its political effectiveness.Mr. Macron visited a wind-turbine factory in Le Havre during a campaign stop this month. In his victory speech, he promised to make France “a great ecological nation.” James Hill for The New York TimesIf the restless energy of Mr. Macron seems certain to persist, the French electorate made clear that it needs to be redirected. They have had enough of an insouciant leader with bold plans to transform Europe into a real “power”; they want a president attentive to their needs as prices rise and salaries stagnate.Many of them also want a democratization of the top-down French presidential system that Mr. Macron had promised but did not deliver. He may propose introducing an element of proportional representation in voting for the National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, Mr. Duhamel said. This would happen after the June vote.The current two-round system has favored alliances of mainstream parties against extremist parties like Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally, formerly the National Front, resulting in a democratic disconnect: A party may have widespread support but scant representatives. This, too, has fed anger in the country, on the left and on the right.When it comes to listening, Mr. Macron may be obliged to extend that practice to his European interlocutors. The war in Ukraine has comforted Mr. Macron’s belief that a stronger Europe must be forged with its own military and technological capacities in order to count in the 21st-century world.Mr. Macron, center, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and President Biden in Brussels last month.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut his style — announcing dramatic goals for European “strategic autonomy” rather than quietly building coalitions to achieve them — has not pleased everyone in a European Union where a strong attachment to NATO and American power exists, especially in the countries closest to the Russian border.President Biden, in a congratulatory message to Mr. Macron, said he looked forward to working together “to defend democracy.” By defeating Ms. Le Pen, with her strong attachment to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the French president has just made a notable contribution to that cause.Mr. Macron will remain a firm supporter of multilateralism, the rule of law, the European Union and the NATO that he hopes to reform to allow more room for Europe to develop its own defense capacities. These are fixed points in his flexible beliefs.He will also continue to calibrate his message even as he redirects it toward the less fortunate. His goal, he said in victory, was a “humanist” France, but also an “entrepreneurial” one, a France of “work and creativity” but also “a more just society.”These code words to the right and left — entrepreneurship and justice — were Mr. Macron personified.The French electorate, while re-electing Mr. Macron, has made clear that it wants him to redirect his restless energy.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times More

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      Emmanuel Macron Defeats Marine Le Pen for Second Term as French President

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      The result was a relief to allies in Europe and Washington wary of a far-right challenger who was hostile to the European Union and NATO.PARIS — Emmanuel Macron won a second term as president of France, triumphing on Sunday over Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, after a campaign where his promise of stability prevailed over the temptation of an extremist lurch.Projections at the close of voting, which are generally reliable, showed Mr. Macron, a centrist, gaining 58.5 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 41.5 percent. His victory was much narrower than in 2017, when the margin was 66.1 percent to 33.9 percent for Ms. Le Pen, but wider than appeared likely two weeks ago.Speaking to a crowd massed on the Champ de Mars in front of a twinkling Eiffel Tower, a solemn Mr. Macron said his was a victory for “a more independent France and a stronger Europe.” He added: “Our country is riddled with so many doubts, so many divisions. We will have to be strong, but nobody will be left by the side of the road.”Ms. Le Pen conceded defeat in her third attempt to become president, but bitterly criticized the “brutal and violent methods” of Mr. Macron, without explaining what she meant. She vowed to fight on to secure a large number of representatives in legislative elections in June, declaring that “French people have this evening shown their desire for a strong counter power to Emmanuel Macron.”Mr. Macron addressed supporters in front of the Eiffel Tower after his victory.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesAt a critical moment in Europe, with fighting raging in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, France rejected a candidate hostile to NATO, to the European Union, to the United States, and to its fundamental values that hold that no French citizens should be discriminated against because they are Muslim.Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, said the result reflected “the mobilization of French people for the maintenance of their values and against a narrow vision of France.”The French do not generally love their presidents, and none had succeeded in being re-elected since 2002, let alone by a 17-point margin. Mr. Macron’s unusual achievement in securing five more years in power reflects his effective stewardship over the Covid-19 crisis, his rekindling of the economy, and his political agility in occupying the entire center of the political spectrum.Ms. Le Pen, softening her image if not her anti-immigrant nationalist program, rode a wave of alienation and disenchantment to bring the extreme right closer to power than at any time since 1944. Her National Rally party has joined the mainstream, even if at the last minute many French people clearly voted for Mr. Macron to ensure that France not succumb to the xenophobic vitriol of the darker passages of its history.Ms. Le Pen is a longtime sympathizer with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom she visited at the Kremlin during her last campaign in 2017. She would almost certainly have pursued policies that weakened the united allied front to save Ukraine from Russia’s assault; offered Mr. Putin a breach to exploit in Europe; and undermined the European Union, whose engine has always been a joint Franco-German commitment to it.Marine Le Pen conceded to Mr. Macron, but bitterly criticized his “brutal and violent methods” without explaining what she meant.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesIf Brexit was a blow to unity, a French nationalist quasi-exit, as set out in Ms. Le Pen’s proposals, would have left the European Union on life support. That, in turn, would have crippled an essential guarantor of peace on the continent in a volatile moment.Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, declared that Mr. Macron’s win was “a vote of confidence in Europe.” Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, congratulated the French leader and called France “one of our closest and most important allies.”Mr. Scholz and two other European leaders had taken the unusual step last week of making clear the importance of a vote against Ms. Le Pen in an opinion article in the daily newspaper Le Monde. The letter was a reflection of the anxiety in European capitals and Washington that preceded the vote.“It is the choice between a democratic candidate, who believes that France is stronger in a powerful and autonomous European Union, and a far-right candidate, who openly sides with those who attack our freedom and our democracy,” they wrote.Mr. Macron’s second victory felt different from his first. Five years ago, he was a 39-year-old wunderkind bursting on the French political scene with a promise to bury sterile left-right divisions and build a more just, equal, open and dynamic society. He organized a massive celebration in the main courtyard of the Louvre to mark the dawn of a new political era in France.Sunday night, given the war in Europe, he asked for sobriety from his supporters. As Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the European hymn, played (but much more softly than in 2017), he walked onto the Champ de Mars holding the hand of his wife, Brigitte. Children surrounded the couple; the choreography conveyed simplicity and humility.Supporters of Mr. Macron celebrated on the Champ de Mars.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesMr. Macron has often been criticized for an aloofness bordering on arrogance during his first term.“We avoided a certain form of violence. I am relieved,” said Eric Maus, 64, a Macron supporter. “But I feel like I am handing my daughter an uncertain world where the extreme right scores so high.”Mr. Macron succeeded in spurring growth, slashing unemployment and instilling a start-up tech culture, but was unable to address growing inequality or simmering anger among the alienated and the struggling in areas of urban blight and rural remoteness. Societal divisions sharpened as incomes stagnated, prices rose and factories moved abroad.As a result, Mr. Macron’s political capital is more limited, even if his clear victory has saved France from a dangerous tilt toward xenophobic nationalism and given him momentum ahead of the June legislative elections.Still, many of the 7.7 million voters who had supported the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round of the presidential election on April 10 voted only reluctantly for Mr. Macron to keep Ms. Le Pen from power. Assina Channa, a Muslim of Algerian descent voting in the suburb of Saint-Denis north of Paris, said, “Nothing is going to change but I had no choice.”Ms. Le Pen had proposed a ban on the Muslim head scarf and has regularly equated Islam with violence in the country with the largest Muslim community in western Europe. “At least he doesn’t threaten us like she does,” Ms. Channa said.A polling station in Saint-Denis.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMr. Macron acknowledged that “many of our compatriots voted for me today not to support my ideas but to form a dam against the extreme right.” He thanked them and said “I am now entrusted with their sense of duty, their attachment to the Republic and their respect for the differences expressed these past weeks.”Some 28 percent of the electorate abstained, three percentage points higher than in 2017, and it appeared that more than 13 million people had voted for Ms. Le Pen and the extreme right. “The anger and the disagreements that led my compatriots to vote for this project must also find an answer,” Mr. Macron said.It was a speech not of soaring rhetoric but of sober realism, almost at times contrition, reflecting his recognition of a starkly divided France and perhaps also his inattention to those for whom life has been hardest.The dreams of radical change of 2017 have been supplanted by fears of political confrontation over the summer, in part because the dislike of Mr. Macron among his opponents is strong, and in part because the legislative elections in June could result in a National Assembly less pliant to his will.Constantly adjusting his positions, extending the circle of his allies and refining his ideas, Mr. Macron has proved himself a consummate politician, suffocating any would-be moderate challengers. He engineered the near total demise of the center-left Socialist Party and the center-right Republicans, the two political forces at the heart of postwar French politics. It was a remarkable feat.Supporters of Mr. Macron celebrating in Paris on Sunday.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesBut there was a price to pay for all this. The old structure of French politics has collapsed, and it is less clear how the violent conflicts of society can be mediated.Those conflicts have become more acute as anger has grown in the parts of France that have felt neglected, even forgotten, by the elites in major cities. By addressing these concerns, and promising a series of tax cuts to help people cope with rising prices for gas and electricity, Ms. Le Pen built an effective campaign.Her message, for some voters, was that she would care for and protect them while their president seemed to have other concerns. But her nationalist message also resonated among people angered by undocumented immigrants entering the country and seeking scapegoats for the country’s problems.The president’s problems have reflected both his personality and political choices. His highly personalized top-down style of government owed more to Bonaparte than to the democratic opening he had said he would bring to the French presidential system. His attempts to force march Europe toward a vision of “strategic autonomy” backed by its own integrated military has met resistance in the countries like Poland that are most attached to America as a European power.Emerging from the moderate left of the political system, and supported by many Socialists five years ago, Mr. Macron veered to the right both in his initial economic policy and in a much-criticized decision to confront what he called “Islamist separatism” by shutting down several mosques and Islamic associations — often on flimsy legal grounds.He judged that he had more to gain on the right than to fear on the fragmented left of the political spectrum in a country whose psyche has been deeply marked by several Islamist terrorist attacks since 2015. In a sense, his victory proved him correct, the master of a broad web of adjustable allegiances that left his opponents floundering.Aida Alami More

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      Inside Le Pen Territory as France Votes in a Runoff Election

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      Whatever happens in the runoff election on Sunday, France has changed, and the winner may face a turbulent season.ST. RÉMY-SUR-AVRE, France — Eternal France, its villages gathered around church spires, its fields etched in a bright patchwork of green and rapeseed yellow, unfolds as if to offer reassurance in troubled times that some things do not change. But the presidential election on Sunday, an earthquake whatever its outcome, suggests otherwise.France has changed. It has eviscerated the center-left and center-right parties that were the chief vehicles of its postwar politics. It has split into three blocs: the hard left, an amorphous center gathered around President Emmanuel Macron, and the extreme right of Marine Le Pen.Above all, with Ms. Le Pen likely to get some 45 percent of the vote, it has buried a tenacious taboo. In a country that for four wartime years lived under the racist Nazi-puppet Vichy government, no xenophobic, nationalist leader would be allowed into the political mainstream, let alone be able to claim the highest office in the land.Unlikely to win, but well within the zone of a potential surprise, Ms. Le Pen has shattered all of that. She is no outlier. She is the new French normal. If Mr. Macron does edge to victory, as polls suggest, he will face a restive, fractured country, where hatred of him is not uncommon. The old nostrum that France is ungovernable may be tested again.In St. Rémy-sur-Avre, Ms. Le Pen took 37.2 percent of the vote in the first round of the election, pushing Mr. Macron into a distant second with 23.6 percent.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesSt. Rémy-sur-Avre, a small town of some 4,000 inhabitants about 60 miles west of Paris, is Le Pen territory. In the Maryland cafe, named for a cigarette brand that is no more, the prevailing view is that something has to give in a France that has lost its way under a president too privileged and remote to know anything of the burden of struggle.Customers buy lottery tickets, or bet on the harness racing on television, in the hope of unlikely relief from hardship. A kir, white wine with a little black current liqueur, is a popular morning drink. The streets are deserted; most stores have disappeared, crushed by the hypermarkets out on the highway. In this town, Ms. Le Pen took 37.2 percent of the vote in the first round of the election on April 10, pushing Mr. Macron into a distant second with 23.6 percent.Jean-Michel Gérard, 66, one of the kir drinkers, worked in the meat business from age 15, as a butcher, in slaughterhouses, or as a trucker hauling beef carcasses. But he had to stop at 60, when his knees gave out from regularly carrying several tons of meat a day on his back, the record being a single 465-pound rear of a bull.“Now we have a generation of slackers,” he said. “When I was young, if you did not work, you did not eat.”The old France of solidarity and fraternity had disappeared, he lamented, gone like the horse butchers where he started work and replaced by a new France of individualism, jealousy and indulgence.The old France of solidarity and fraternity has disappeared and been replaced by a new France of individualism, jealousy and indulgence, said Jean-Michel Gérard, who worked in the meat industry until a few years ago.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHe voted for the left until François Mitterrand, the former Socialist president, imposed limits on work hours, and then switched his allegiance to the far-right National Front party, now Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally. What infuriated him, he said, was foreigners collecting social benefits and handouts without working.“We didn’t want to work less, we wanted to work more to earn more. What’s the use of free time without money?” he asked. “If foreigners work, they have their place. If not, no.”Mr. Gérard gazed out at the church. That jogged a memory. The other day, he said, he saw a young man from the Maghreb urinating on the church wall. He shouted at the man, who looked about 17. “What would you do if I urinated on a mosque?”The fraught relationship between France and Islam — in the country with the largest Muslim population in Western Europe and a recent history of terrorist attacks — has been one of the themes of the election campaign. Mr. Macron has called Ms. Le Pen’s program racist for wanting to make head scarves illegal on the grounds that they constitute a threatening “Islamist uniform” — on the face of it, an extraordinary claim, given that an overwhelming majority of Muslims in France just want to live peacefully.Muslims attending Friday Prayer this week at a mosque in an eastern suburb of Paris. The fraught relationship between France and Islam has been one of the themes of the election campaign.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times“If women are wearing them just for their religion, OK,” Mr. Gérard said, “but I think in general it’s a provocation.”Maryvonne Duché, another firm supporter of Ms. Le Pen, was seated at a table close by. She started work at 14 as a sales clerk, before spending 34 years on the production line at a nearby Philips electronics factory, which closed 12 years ago.“Apart from two pregnancies, I worked nonstop from age 14 to 60, and now I have a pension of 1,160 euros a month,” she said — or about $1,250. “It’s pathetic, with almost half going in rent, but Macron doesn’t care.”And Ms. Le Pen? “I don’t love her, but I will vote for her to get rid of Macron.”The view of Mr. Macron in this town was of near-universal disdain: a man with no respect for French people, removed from reality, so cerebral he has no idea of “real life,” insensitive to the everyday problems of many people, from a class that has “never changed a kid’s diaper,” in Mr. Gérard’s words.Ms. Le Pen, by contrast, is seen as someone who will protect people from the disruptive onslaught of the modern world.What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More

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      France’s Big Decision

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      Rachelle Bonja, Kaitlin Roberts and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWhen they go to the polls on Sunday, voters in France will be faced with the same two presidential candidates as 2017: Emmanuel Macron, the president and a polished centrist, and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally party.Yet the context is different. There is a war in Europe, and the contest is tight.What are the stakes in the runoff election, and how has the race become so close?On today’s episodeRoger Cohen, Paris bureau chief for The New York Times.President Emmanuel Macron, left, and Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, squared off in a debate on Wednesday ahead of the runoff.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinBackground readingPresident Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, in the runoff on Sunday. The outcome will be crucial for France and reverberate globally.No French president has been the object of such intense dislike among significant segments of the population as Mr. Macron. How deep that loathing runs will be a critical factor in the election.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.Transcripts of each episode are available by the next workday. You can find them at the top of the page.Roger Cohen contributed reporting.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Kaitlin Roberts, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky and John Ketchum.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Sofia Milan, Desiree Ibekwe, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli and Maddy Masiello. More

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      As Marine Le Pen Moves Closer to French Presidency, Putin Ties Persist

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      As elections approach Sunday, the far-right candidate is linked to the Russian president by a web of financial ties and a history of support that has hardly dimmed despite the war in Ukraine.PARIS — When Europe’s far-right leaders gathered in Madrid in January, they had no problem finding unity on the issues they hold dear, whether cracking down on immigrants or upholding “European Christian ideals.” But as Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, they were divided on one issue: the threat posed by President Vladimir V. Putin.Marine Le Pen, the extreme-right challenger for the French presidency, objected to a paragraph in the final statement calling for European solidarity to confront “Russian military actions on the eastern border of Europe.” Even in a gathering of illiberal nationalists, she was an outlier in her fealty to Mr. Putin.Now, on her campaign website, the leaders’ statement appears with that paragraph cut in an unacknowledged change to the text. This little subterfuge is consistent with an embrace of Mr. Putin so complete that even his ravaging of Ukraine has hardly diminished it.Over the past decade, Ms. Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, formerly the National Front, has borrowed millions from a Russian bank, and Ms. Le Pen has supported Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, as well as his incendiary meddling that year in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where just this week Russia redoubled its offensive.Her support for Mr. Putin is one thing in a time of peace and another in a time of war. Russia, a nuclear power, has invaded a European state, and Ms. Le Pen is closer than ever to her cherished goal of becoming president of France, having narrowed the gap with President Emmanuel Macron before the decisive round of the election on Sunday.Supporters of Ms. Le Pen at a campaign rally in Stiring-Wendel, France, on April 1. She has come closer to Mr. Macron in polls as a decisive election round nears.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesWith polls showing Ms. Le Pen gaining about 44.5 percent of the vote to Mr. Macron’s 55.5 percent, she is within range of the shocks that produced Brexit and Donald J. Trump’s victory in 2016. As in Britain and the United States, alienation and economic hardship have fed a French readiness to gamble on nationalist dreams.If Ms. Le Pen wins, which is not likely but possible, her victory will almost certainly fracture the allied unity engineered by President Biden in an attempt to defeat Mr. Putin. It would hand Mr. Putin by far his most important ally in Europe, one he could leverage in his aims to divide Europe from the United States and fracture Europe’s decades-old project of unity.France, a core member of the European Union and NATO, is suddenly the possible soft underbelly of the West.Julien Nocetti, a Russia expert at the French Institute of International Relations, said there was “a complete ideological alignment between Putin and Le Pen” — one that would be deeply worrying to France’s American and European allies.The Ukraine war has caused Ms. Le Pen to pivot a little by saying Mr. Putin crossed “a red line” with the invasion, but she still says her foreign-policy priority is a rapprochement with Russia once the fighting stops.Bodies being loaded onto a truck in Bucha, Ukraine, where evidence of Russian atrocities mounted. Ms. Le Pen said that Mr. Putin crossed “a red line” with the invasion but also that she will seek a rapprochement with Russia.Daniel Berehulak for The New York TimesSince Ms. Le Pen, 53, took over the leadership of her party in 2011, she has only deepened its Putin predilection, making four trips to Moscow and one to Crimea. She would support sanctions against Russia, she says, but not cutting off imports of Russian oil and gas, which she has equated with economic death for France.“We have to think of our people,” she said in a recent TV interview, a position consistent with the strong focus on pocketbook issues that has propelled her campaign. The majority of French people are more focused on getting to the end of the month than getting Russia out of Ukraine.Certainly, Ms. Le Pen vaunted her connection with Mr. Putin until he went to war on Feb. 24. She included a photo of herself shaking hands with him in her election brochure as evidence of her “international stature.” This handout disappeared abruptly from view after the Russian invasion.The photo was taken at the Kremlin on March 24, 2017. That was less than five weeks before the first round of the last presidential election, in which Mr. Macron defeated Ms. Le Pen by 66.1 percent to 33.9 percent. The National Rally leader said then that she would immediately review lifting “unjust” sanctions against Russia if elected.As for Mr. Putin, he said with a knowing smirk that Russia did “not want to influence events in any way.”Shopping at a supermarket in Livry-Gargan, Paris, in December. Most French voters are more concerned about the economy than the Ukraine war.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesJean-Maurice Ripert, the French ambassador in Moscow from 2013 to 2017, said in an interview that a fellow European ambassador, a close friend, had asked the Russian leader after the French election why he had backed Ms. Le Pen.“Because I had been told she was going to win,” Mr. Putin said.Certainly that is what he wanted. Ms. Le Pen, committed to “equidistance” between great powers and hostile to “America’s protectorate on European soil,” sees in Mr. Putin the defender of the nation-state, family and Christianity against border-eroding multilateralism and irreligious cultural decay.“It’s all about sovereignty,” said Marlène Laruelle, the French director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian studies at George Washington University. “The sovereign state against international organizations; the sovereign traditional family against L.G.B.T.Q. rights.”Then there is the money. Unable to get a loan from French banks, Ms. Le Pen and several of her top aides scrambled for cash in Russia, accepting a 9.4 million euro loan, then $12.2 million, at a 6 percent interest rate, from the First Czech-Russian Bank in September 2014. It was supposed to be repaid by 2019.A branch of the First Czech-Russian Bank in Moscow, before it collapsed in 2016. Ms. Le Pen received millions in loans from the bank.Dmitry Serebryakov/TASS/Alamy Live NewsWallerand de Saint-Just, who was long the National Rally’s treasurer before leaving the position last year, negotiated the deal in Moscow. In a written answer to a question as to why French banks had refused any loan to the National Rally, he said “My experience with the six big French banking groups is that they obey orders from the political executive.”But given the lack of transparency and accountability in Russia’s financial sector — and Mr. Putin’s sway over it in his pay-to-play system — the sum has long raised hard questions of just how beholden Ms. Le Pen actually is to the Russian president, and whether some of her outspoken backing for him has been a consequence.I asked Ms. Le Pen this month at a news conference whether the outstanding loan did not create at least the impression of dependence on Russia, a liability for any future president?“Absolutely not,” she said. “I am totally independent of any link to any power.”In her current campaign, again unable to get a loan from a French bank, Ms. Le Pen turned to Hungary, where Viktor Orban, the anti-immigrant Hungarian prime minister, has been in power for 12 years. A Hungarian bank has now lent the National Rally another $11.4 million, so if she were to win she would be indebted to both Mr. Putin and Mr. Orban.Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, center, attending a meeting of far-right and conservative leaders in Madrid, in January.Oscar Del Pozo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAlready her backing of Mr. Putin has been borderline fawning. Ms. Le Pen visited Moscow and Crimea in June 2013; Moscow in April 2014; and Moscow again in May 2015. She was received by the president of the Duma, the lower chamber of Russia’s Parliament, during the first of these visits, and sprinkled her Russian sojourns with pro-Putin remarks.In 2013, she blamed the European Union for a new “Cold War on Russia.” In 2015, also while in Moscow, she criticized France’s pro-American stance and suggested this would change “in 2017 with Marine Le Pen as president.” In 2021, she recommended Russia’s uncertain Sputnik vaccine for the coronavirus, saying “our anti-Russian ideology should not ruin our capacity to vaccinate our fellow citizens.”The 2014 visit came at a particularly delicate moment, given the Crimea annexation. It was one of several demonstrations of support for Mr. Putin from prominent members of Ms. Le Pen’s party who visited Crimea that year, and the Donbas, the Ukrainian region where clashes kindled by Moscow had begun.Among them was Aymeric Chauprade, her former top diplomatic adviser, who went to Crimea to observe the dubious March 2014 referendum that massively backed the Russian annexation. A United Nations General Assembly resolution declared the vote invalid.“It was the West that began changing European borders with Kosovo’s independence in 2008,” Mr. Chauprade, who has since left the National Rally, said in an interview. “There was an openness to accepting invitations from Russia, a good atmosphere.”Russian troops guarded a Ukrainian marine base in Crimea as Mr. Putin moved to annex the peninsula in March 2014. Le Pen has visited Moscow and Crimea and made remarks that were supportive of Russia.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMediapart, a French investigative news website, was the first to expose the Russian loan to the National Rally in September 2014. In an earlier interview with Mediapart, Mr. Chauprade said visits to the Donbas that year and in 2015 by Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a former National Rally member of the European Parliament, had been a “quid pro quo” for the loan.What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More