Macron savaged by French rival as he gives brutal prediction for future as president
Louis Aliot, who is also mayor of the southern city of Perpignan, said: "With no majority, if it is ungovernable, after a few months", and Macron "will be forced to draw the consequences".
Emmanuel Macron will soon be forced to resign after France's far right National Rally's victory in the first round of parliamentary elections, the Vice President of the National Rally (RN) predicts.
The hard-right party won 33 percent of the votes, followed by the left-wing New Popular Front with 28 percent, and Macron's party came in third with 20 percent.
If, however, the centrist and leftist forces joined forces and formed what is known in French politics as a cordon sanitaire against the far-right, they could stave off RN's advance and force Bardella to find allies of his own in order to govern.
But Louis Aliot, who is also mayor of the southern city of Perpignan, thinks Macron's position will become unetnenble.
"If there is no majority, if it is ungovernable, after a few months" Macron "will be forced to draw the consequences", he told franceinfo.
Macron's Rennaissance party is now scrambling to prevent Marine Le Pen's far right from winning an absolute majority.
If the National Rally or another political force than his centrist alliance gets a majority, which appears possible given RN's recent surge, Macron will be forced to appoint a prime minister from that new majority.
That situation, which has happened only three times in the history of the Fifth Republic, is known as “cohabitation” in France and would see the government implementing policies at odds with the president's plan.
But such arrangements are famously fraught, and Aliot believes the writing is on the wall for Macron.
"I am familiar with all the discussions that have taken place regarding cohabitation over the past 40 years. All jurists will tell you that at some point, if this cohabitation is not possible and there is no majority forming a stable government, it is up to the president to question his continuation in power."
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Aliot says a coalition of deputies from the New Popular Front, the president's bloc, and non-Ciottist Republicans to counter the RN is a mere fantasy.
"Obviously, it would be ungovernable," he argued. "They already do not get along among themselves on the left. So can you imagine?"
Macron announced the snap vote in June, after his centrist alliance was hammered in the European Union elections.
The President argued his alliance hasn't held a parliamentary majority for two years, even while having the most seats, and that the situation forced him into political maneuvering just to pass bills.
Voters in the two-round ballot on July 7 are to choose who they’ll send to the National Assembly, which will lead to the formation of a new government.
Celebrating the first results, which came amid the biggest turnout for a parliamentary vote in almost four decades in France, Le Pen said Macron had been "practically wiped out" by the far-right coalition.
She added: "We need an absolute majority so that [RN leader] Jordan Bardella can be appointed prime minister in a week’s time."
The results, which could see a hard-right leadership rising to power in France for the first time since the Vichy regime in the 1940s, brought left-wing voters to the streets of Paris on Sunday.
Thousands of people were seen voicing their disappointment at the surge of the far-right as they gathered in Place de la République.
