At French elections, Macron’s majority is on the line

ago, a wave of political debutants surged into the French National Assembly. A teacher from Strasbourg, an entrepreneur from Lyon, a farmer from Brittany, a fireman from western France: all these, and many more, won seats for Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, then called La République en Marche. With allies it bagged 60% of the lower house of parliament, marking a wholesale clear-out that lowered the average age of deputies and filled the assembly with women.Today, however, it is Mr Macron’s party that faces an insurgency at the ballot box, which could deprive the re-elected president of his majority and put a stop to any further plans for reforms. On June 12th and 19th voters will elect a new parliament. Nationally, the polls put Ensemble, Mr Macron’s centrist alliance, neck-and-neck with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s new radical-left grouping , which includes the Socialists, Communists and Greens. Under the two-round first-past-the-post system, Mr Macron’s alliance is likely to remain the biggest. looks set to replace the centre-right Republicans as the main opposition, grabbing at least three times as many seats as both that party and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. Mr Mélenchon is unlikely to win a majority. But polls suggest that the president could lose his, with a shortfall of anything from 14 to 39 seats.