The French left never had a plan for winning, and it could cost them their victory

PARIS — Winning was the easy part.

But a week after the French left scored a surprise victory in snap parliamentary elections, it still can’t seem to decide who should govern. The alliance’s four founding parties have already put forward at least six candidates for prime minister, all of whom have been shot down. Negotiations appear to be at a standstill.

In most cases, the issue of who to lead would have been solved before the final votes were counted. The far-right National Rally had put forward Jordan Bardella as their candidate for the Matignon, while the centrists rallied around incumbent Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

The New Popular Front (NFP), however, was put together to counter the far right and oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist movement. Few predicted that a contest long tipped to be dominated by the National Rally would end with the left in a chance to govern — including, it appears, the left itself.

Should it fail to choose a leader soon, the NFP’s opponents could sneak in to offer an alternative coalition and, in the process, fracture the pan-left alliance before its members have even had a chance to take their seats in the National Assembly.

A leaderless alliance

Critics of the NFP, Macron among them, were quick to hit it for uniting under one banner despite having significant disagreements on both strategy and policy matters, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Critics of the NFP, Macron among them, were quick to hit it for uniting under one banner. | Pool Photo by Ludovic Marin via Getty Images

To paper over these divisions, the NFP chose not to field a leader during its campaign. The coalition nabbed upwards of 190 seats of the 577-strong National Assembly, sufficient to win but far from enough to clinch a majority.

With their leaderless campaign in the rearview mirror, both France Unbowed (LFI) and the Socialists have claimed the right to appoint someone from their ranks. LFI argues they have the largest leftist group in parliament and points to its strong showing in the last presidential election; the Socialists contend that the party finished first among left-leaning lists in the European election and more substantially increased its number of seats in parliament than other parties from the left.

France Unbowed put forward four of its leaders, including the three-time presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, all of whom were rejected by the Socialists. The Socialists argued mostly in favor of their party head, Olivier Faure, a suggestion which LFI representatives pushed back against.

“If you’ve got LFI wanting someone from LFI, and the Socialists wanting a Socialist … that’s not interesting,” Green leader Marine Tondelier said in a radio interview on Sunday.

The coalition appeared close to reaching an agreement late last week, when Fabien Roussel of the French Communist Party proposed Huguette Bello, president of the overseas French territory of La Réunion. Bello served as a lawmaker for 13 years, sitting alongside the communists, but then backed Mélenchon and France Unbowed in the 2022 presidential and 2024 EU elections. She presides over a pan-left coalition in La Réunion which includes socialist representatives.

NPF faces its first deadline on Thursday, when newly elected lawmakers kick off the legislature. | Alain Jocard/Getty Images

However, Socialist leadership eventually refused to endorse Bello’s candidacy, effectively killing it.

France Unbowed is now hardening its tone, significantly weakening the prospect of a successful outcome. Mélenchon’s movement said it would no longer take part in discussions on the formation of a government until “the Socialist Party gives up on its refusal to accept any candidacy other than its own” and “affirms its unwillingness to enter into any kind of agreement with the pro-Macron camp.”

The Socialist Party pushed back against the notion that it was stalling talks in a statement published on Monday.

Hoping to bring LFI back to the negotiation table, the Greens, Socialists and Communists said Monday that they had jointly submitted a potential prime minister from outside the political sphere, whose name has not yet been made public.

Centrist leaders, meanwhile, are closely following the infighting on the left, hoping that a breakdown in talks would draw the Socialist Party away from its more radical allies and open the prospect of a coalition spanning from social democrats to conservatives.

Can the NFP make it to day 1?

The clock is ticking. New Popular Front faces its first deadline on Thursday, when newly elected lawmakers kick off the legislature. The first point of order on the agenda: electing the president of the National Assembly, a matter on which the left-wing coalition has also failed to agree so far.

The leader of the French lower house is elected in a three-round voting system. An absolute majority is needed to win in the first or second round; if no winner appears, whoever gets the most votes in the third round is elected.

The left bloc, being the largest in the National Assembly, would stand a fair chance of winning if coalition members settle on a candidate.

Failure to do so would effectively put an end to the NFP’s capacity to present itself as a cohesive group and the leading force in French politics.