French 2nd Round Presidential Election: 7th May 2017

20 June 2017

President Emmanuel Macron won a commanding majority in France's parliamentary election, sweeping aside traditional parties and securing a powerful mandate for pro-business reforms. The result, based on official figures and pollster projections, redraws France's political landscape, humiliating the Socialist and conservative parties that alternated in power for decades until Macron's election in May. The scale of victory gives the president, a pro-European Union centrist, a strong platform from which to make good on campaign promises to revive France's fortunes by cleaning up politics and relaxing regulations that investors say shackle the euro zone’s second-biggest economy.

1 May 2017

Following his Presidential election victory, Emmanuel Macron has now named hiscabinet. The list represents a broad swathe across the political spectrum, although PM Edouard Philippe and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire both come from right of the political centre. Attention will now turn to National Assembly elections on 11/18 June. A recent Opinionway poll suggested that Macron’s République en Marche (REM) party will take 280-300 of the 535 (mainland) seats (of 577 in total). But France’s two stage system introduces more uncertainty to polling, and whether REM will gain an overall majority will at least partly depend on whether the Socialist vote collapses as it did in April.