Sweden has been run by coalitions since the 1970s, Germany has not known single-party government since 1961 and in Italy, multiparty rule has been the norm since the early 1940s. The Netherlands was last run by just one party in 1879.
In France, however, political leaders from left and right have lined up to rule out a coalition government after Sunday’s snap election produced a parliament of three roughly equal blocs – none with a majority, and all with wildly differing platforms.
The new government must “implement the New Popular Front’s programme, its whole programme, and nothing but its programme”, said Manuel Bompard, of the radical-left France Unbowed (LFI), which is the largest party in the left-green NFP alliance.
Mathilde Panot, another LFI deputy, was even clearer. “There must be an NFP government … based on our programme,” she said on Tuesday. “No coalition with the centrists or Les Républicains (LR). We are not compatible.”
The NFP won 182 seats in the assembly, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Together coalition returning 168 MPs and the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen third with 143. None are anywhere near the 289 seats required for a majority.
“I see the temptation of talks, of combinations to cobble together unnatural alliances,” said Laurent Wauquiez, of the centre-right LR, which has nearly 70 deputies. “They’ll happen without us. For us, no coalition, no sellout.”
For their part, Macron’s centrists have accepted the idea of a broad possible coalition ranging from the moderate-left Socialist party (PS) to LR, acknowledging that a stable government would require compromise and cooperation. They just won’t do it with LFI.
“We cannot work with those who aim to divide the French people,” said Benjamin Haddad, a Together MP. “I would oppose an NFP-led government and vote in favour of any no-confidence motion against a cabinet containing ministers from LFI.”
Such responses may be difficult for many Europeans to understand, and certainly look unhelpful for a country in need of a government that might be acceptable to voters – and last longer than a few weeks before being voted out by a majority of MPs.
But at national government level, French politics and coalitions have not mixed for many years. That’s partly a consequence of a two-round electoral system that almost invariably produces single-party majorities without the need for coalitions.
The system was part of France’s response to the chaos of the Fourth Republic, which between 1946 and 1958 saw no fewer than 21 “revolving door” governments come and go, along with 16 prime ministers, some of whom lasted only days.
Coalitions, such as NFP and its predecessor, Nupes, are formed before elections, but are mainly about maximising the chances of winning, with bigger parties typically agreeing, for example, not to run candidates against a minor ally in a few seats.
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But once the election is over, the major party has rarely needed support to form a government. In 2012, an electoral pact with the Socialist party (PS) saw the Greens win 17 seats and become part of the presidential majority of François Hollande. They quit the government over a series of policy disagreements in 2014, however, without major consequence: the Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, had enough support in parliament to allow him to pass laws without them.
“To put it bluntly: French political parties are not used to negotiating coalitions and compromises,” said Isabelle Guinaudeau, a specialist in political competition and comparative politics at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). “Each hopes to benefit from France’s majoritarian institutions to implement all its agenda.”
That approach was still evident, she said, after Macron blew up French politics, triggering the collapse of the mainstream centre-right and left, in 2017. In the 2022 parliamentary elections, she noted, “Macron did not obtain an absolute majority. But did he try to negotiate a coalition or support in exchange for policy concessions? No.”
Instead, she said, Macron opted for a “strong-arm procedure”. The president resorted to special constitutional powers such as the unpopular article 49.3 to push legislation through without a parliamentary vote – a strategy that can work only as long as there is no majority of MPs willing to collapse the government.
In France’s new parliament, however, that will be impossible. Any government relying on support from just one of the three main blocs is necessarily doomed – unless it has negotiated, at the very least, a few basic positions and red lines.
“So either French party officials learn to negotiate and set up new types of coalitions,” said Guinaudeau, “or we have good chances of seeing the next government falling due to a no-confidence motion – triggering an institutional crisis.”