The recent French elections for the National Assembly resulted in the far-right National Rally party being pushed into third place but with no clear winner. The New Popular Front (NFP), a broad alliance of left-wing parties, won the most seats but not enough to form a majority and the center-right parties refused to form an alliance with them, fearing that their leader would become prime minister.

But then two days ago, a last-minute alliance of all the center right parties and a few unaffiliated members resulted in one of their candidates Yaël Braun-Pivet being re-elected head of the National Assembly, opening the door to president Emmanuel Macron appointing a prime minister from his own party.

Emmanuel Macron’s party formed a last-minute agreement with right-leaning lawmakers to win a key vote in parliament on Thursday that opens the door to the French president playing a greater-than-expected role in forming the country’s next government.

The two political groups put together an ad-hoc alliance to reelect Yaël Braun-Pivet as head of the French National Assembly, the fourth highest-ranking official in France. The vote was widely seen as a test of who could work together in France’s fractured parliament to name a future prime minister.

In combining forces, the centrists and the center right seized political momentum while also delivering a stunning blow to their rivals further to the left.

But this ad-hoc coalition is unstable.

A conservative lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the newly formed Republican Right political group would take a step-by-step approach, focusing its efforts at this stage on securing key positions in the National Assembly rather than discussing building a government together. The Republican Right has formally registered as being part of the opposition, the lawmaker added. 

The conservatives had previously publicly rejected the prospect of an outright coalition with the pro-Macron camp, but they have steadily signaled their openness to finding common ground on policy — putting forward a “legislative package” focused on policies aimed at “better recognizing work and restoring authority.” 
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Coalition-building and cross-party compromise are rare exercises in French politics. But a minority government would likely be too fragile to survive. With no political party coming close to reaching an absolute majority in the snap election, a coalition government has long appeared to be the most likely outcome.

I am surprised that with so many parties running for parliament, France seems to have been able to avoid having to form coalitions governments very often.