Inauguration ceremonies in France are much smaller affairs than in the United States and do not involve taking the oath of office. President Emmanuel Macron will likely attend a brief event at the Élysée Palace, the presidential residence, and deliver a speech before being carried up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe for a ceremony in honor serving members have fallen.
Jean Castex, Mr. Macron’s current prime minister, has announced that he will step down to make room for new faces ahead of parliamentary elections in June. But it remains unclear when or exactly that could happen – and if so, how long it will take Mr. Macron to form a new government.
Now, the political focus is shifting to congressional elections, which are sometimes referred to as the “third round” of the presidential race and will play a key role in determining when. Macron pursues his agenda.
All seats will be won by the National Assembly, France’s more powerful and lower House of Representatives, under a two-round voting system. Lawmakers also serve five-year terms.
If Mr. Macron struggles to muster a strong parliamentary majority, that could force him into a “cohabitation” – a situation in which the president and Parliament take sides on opposing political sides.
That would force him to choose a prime minister from a different political party and potentially block much of his domestic agenda. (Foreign policy, which is the prerogative of the president, will remain largely unaffected.)
Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the left-wing firefighter who finished third in the first round of the presidential election, both called on voters to make them prime minister.
“Tonight we are starting a major legislative election battle,” Ms. Le Pen, who gained several percentage points from her performance in the 2017 presidential election, told her supporters. dance in his concession speech. “Tonight’s historic score puts our camp in a great position to get a large number of seats in June.”
“I will never abandon the French,” she added.
Mr. Mélenchon, in a speech on Sunday, said that “democracy can still give us the means to change course”.
“The third round will start tonight,” he said.
