By: Emma Xing

At the beginning of June, French president Emmanuel Macron called a snap election.

And so the election began. In France, the parliamentary elections have two rounds of voting. On June 30, the first round of voting began. The voting ended with the National Rally party winning. Because of this, many people thought they would also win in the second round.

However, in the second round of voting, on July 7, the New Popular Front had the most votes. The Ensemble Alliance had the second most votes and the National Rally had the third most votes.

But why is there no clear winner? The French parliament is made of seats. This means when people vote for a candidate, they vote for that person to have a seat in the parliament.

There are 577 seats in the National Assembly. However, to govern, a party needs 289 which is more seats than all the parties put together.

The New Popular Front alliance has the most seats, but they do not have enough for a majority. When this happens and no party wins more seats than all the others together, it is a hung parliament.

This means the party with the most seats would need support from other parties to pass laws. A hung parliament happens when the parties would have to work together in order to have a majority.

The New Popular Front alliance, the party that received the most votes, is already made up of different political parties grouped together.

Because of this, France’s surprise election ended without a winner.

Image Credit by Théo Momboisse