This isn’t an event just like any other. No one committed to our Republic can minimize its political significance — or the extremely serious moment we’re in. In a letter to the French people, the president of the Republic claims that “nobody won the election.” This is not true. Everyone knows that. The Nouveau Front Populaire came out on top in the election — and it is up to it to form the next government. In all the world’s democracies, this is how elections decide who the government will be, whether or not it has an absolute majority of MPs.

After the 2022 election, Emmanuel Macron used this rule to appoint a prime minister from a presidential coalition that did not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly. This coalition was even dubbed the “presidential majority,” even though it did not have a majority of MPs. This time, the coalition of parties supporting Macron came second. The president cannot recommend the formation of a new coalition until he has seen how things stand with the coalition that actually came first. To act as the president is doing is, therefore, a strong-arming of the situation, an abuse of power.

It is also an act of violence against the National Assembly itself. Indeed, Macron is asking for the election [by MPs] of the president of the National Assembly to define the contours of a new governmental majority, notwithstanding the results of the vote by the whole electorate. But that isn’t at all what the election for the president of the Assembly is about. Moreover, can the president of the Republic really be unaware that parliamentary groups can’t be formed without declaring whether they belong to the majority or the opposition? This is impossible if the government “majority” remains unknown. So, these things all go together, and all have one acceptable meaning: the same one contained in the sentence where the president asserts that “nobody won.” He is thus denying the result of the vote on Sunday, July 7. Who could accept this — and endorse such a travesty? And that’s not all.