THE LEFT COMES IN FIRST IN FRENCH ELECTIONS!

As my friend Sébastien Privat says in his email about the unexpected results in France, So the polls were abysmally wrong.
First estimation of the new Chamber composition:
Nouveau Front Populaire : between 172 and 192 representatives
Ensemble (Macron's cocksuckers): between 150 and 170
Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Heineken: between 120 and 136

I've sampled some cask strength single malt...

From today’s Bezos Bugle (aka Washington Post):

Left-wing bloc leads in surprise projections

The first projections after polls closed in France’s legislative election have the populist, anti-immigration National Rally party falling behind an alliance of left-wing parties and candidates from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist movement. French voters appear to have mobilized to prevent the first far-right government since World War II. Without any party getting a majority, however, the result could be political deadlock just ahead of the Paris Olympics.

No bloc appears to have a path to the 289 seats needed for a majority.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Paris and other large French cities to celebrate the results of the country’s legislative elections, after the far-right National Rally party failed to gain a majority of seats in the next National Assembly.

Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally, condemned the “unnatural” political alliance that prevented his party from obtaining a majority of seats in the National Assembly. “Unfortunately, the alliance of dishonor and the dangerous electoral arrangements made by [President] Emmanuel Macron and [Prime Minister] Gabriel Attal with the far-left parties … deprive the French people of a policy of recovery which they widely supported,” Bardella said.

“National Rally embodies more than ever the only alternative” facing this coalition, Bardella said. By positioning his party as the main opposition force for the next two years, Bardella has started laying the groundwork for the next presidential election in 2027, in which his mentor, Marine Le Pen, is expected to run. “Tonight it all begins. National Rally will amplify its work, first in the National Assembly, behind Marine Le Pen, then, in the country,” Bardella said, vowing not to “enter into any political compromises.”

After the far right secured about a third of votes in the first round last weekend, the left-wing New Popular Front coalition and a centrist-to-conservative coalition associated with Macron called on their candidates to back out of three-way runoffs that could have split the vote and helped a National Rally candidate win. The move appears to have succeeded: More than 200 candidates dropped out between the first and second round, affecting the result.

But the anti-far-right alliance has made uncomfortable bedfellows of political parties that fundamentally disagree on major issues, including the far-left France Unbowed party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the conservative Horizons party of former prime minister Édouard Philippe.

The French left appears to have emerged as an unlikely winner in the second round of voting on Sunday, even though it remains far from a majority of seats. Now, a key question will be whether this fragile alliance can hold.

The New Popular Front includes two moderate left-wing parties (the center-left Socialist Party and the Green Party) and two far-left movements (Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed and the Communist Party).

The alliance wants to lower the retirement age, which President Emmanuel Macron raised last year, and vastly expand government spending on social welfare, environmental protection and health care. But, above all, the alliance was forged by left-wing parties’ common goal of blocking the far right. The New Popular Front name was a nod to a left-wing alliance formed in the 1930s to resist fascism.

Tensions within the alliance appeared to have mounted in recent days. On Thursday, François Ruffin — one of the most charismatic figures on the left — broke with Mélenchon.

To form their alliance, leftist parties had agreed to agree on one candidate per constituency. But to the frustration of the moderate left, which includes the Socialist Party that long shaped French politics, Mélenchon’s party obtained a particularly high share of candidates.

An early projection from French broadcaster TF1 put the left-wing alliance first, with between 180 and 215 seats, and Macron’s coalition in second, with 150 to 180 seats. The far-right National Rally party is expected to come in third, with 120 to 150 seats.

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