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Thank you, Aurelien, for what I think is the best analysis, especially clear and bite sized, published in the anglophone MSM.

You are right to say that the results are disappointing for NUPES. One wonders how much of that abstention bloc could have broken for the left if mobilised. Melenchon sounded exasperated by the youth who complain about the cost of housing and access to education, but fail to turn out for candidates who want do something about it, on a France 2 interview a week ago.

You are also right to highlight that the main parties are alliances and the RN is the big winner. It's significant that Le Pen is stepping down from the party leader role, so she can concentrate on leading the RN group of deputies. Greater visibility may enhance her and her party's prospects for 2027, including a rapprochement with her niece, who has ambitions of her own, and perhaps a more professional set-up for a party that has often seemed like a family business and, like LREM, failed to organise at grass roots level.

One wonders if the former Republican elements in LREM, Lemaire, Darmanin and, if not preoccupied with other matters, Abad, can prevail upon the Republican leadership to either formally join a coalition or vote on a motion by motion basis. Jacob may be minded to do a deal, but Ciotti may be reluctant.

One result that observers can rejoice at is the election of trade union activist Rachel Keke. There are, sadly, too few workers and far too many professional politicians in western legislatures, so her election is most welcome.

You say that the next few months and years will be bumpy. That could be as early as this September and "une rentree chaude" or legislative elections within the next couple of years if the assembly seizes up and is dissolved, but the latter could also mean institutional reform, as in a sixth republic.

That bumpy ride may extend beyond France as much of NUPES, RN and what's left of the Republicans are "souverainiste" and unlikely to be impressed with further European and even NATO integration, especially as the war in Ukraine makes the cost of living crisis worse. As Putin said in St Petersburg last Friday, we are seeing the return of nation states.* If France breaks with the west, what will Italy and Germany do?

The significance of this year's French elections have yet to be appreciated elsewhere*, so thank you for this and other posts.

*Die Welt called Macron's set back the end of the Macron era, but it could well be more than that, in France and beyond.

One wonders if la Macronie will be little more than "le pays du champagne pour les riches et cacahuetes pour les pauvres" in the history books? Jupiter's aloofness and arrogrance, obsession with globalisation (really the anglophone neo-liberalism that appeals to the French elite and its wannabe "aspirants" that have no idea of or interest in what that means in communities devastated by decades of neo-liberalism) and neglect of the grass roots, his country's and his party's, and denials that France has a culture** ensured that his appearance would be fleeting.

**Can one imagine a de Gaulle, Mitterand or Chirac saying that?

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Thanks, helpful clarity that appeals to me as accurate. I have a feeling that France -- perhaps together with Spain, The Netherlands, and Scotland -- will not follow the Germanics -- includes English -- Poles, Balts, and Italians into NATO's (Washington's) move against Russia via Kaliningrad. This election reinforces that feeling.

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Thank you, Aurelien for this concise analysis of both the French system and the current 'state of play'!

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"And the streets haven't spoken yet" - this is probably going to end up much more important than most can imagine. The yellow vests were not that long ago, and have spent the last years rewriting the constitution. Now we can expect that they will aim to implement theirnnew constitution over the old one, by force as the old order breaks down.

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