After Macron win, France’s main parties fret over parliament elections

PARIS, May 10: France’s Socialist Party and the wider political Left splintered on Wednesday as centrist Emmanuel Macron’s presidential victory triggered power-struggles between moderates and hardliners ahead of June parliamentary elections.
Benoit Hamon, the unsuccessful Socialist Party candidate in the presidential contest, said he would set up a new political movement after several of his hallmark proposals during that campaign were abandoned by his own party.
Radical left-winger Jean-Luc Melenchon, also eliminated in the presidential contest, criticised his erstwhile allies in the Communist Party and vowed to campaign without them for seats in the 577-seat National Assembly.
The two-stage legislative elections on June 11 and 18 will decide whether a new party created by 39-year-old Macron, who is due formally to take power on Sunday, will win enough seats to allow him to govern effectively for the next five years.
Macron’s year-old Republic on the Move party does not have any seats in the current parliament but it hopes in June to secure a majority that will allow him to push through economic reforms for reviving an economy beset by high unemployment and sluggish growth.
(Reuters)