French elections: What now for opposition left and far-right?

21.06.2022, 10:41 bbc.com

They were the big winners of France's elections, tearing apart President Emmanuel Macron's majority. The broad left-wing alliance under Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen's far right were described as a pincer movement from the extremes by our Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield. They are poles apart but have largely the same ambition of opposing the centrist Macron government. For veteran far-left leader Mr Mélenchon the success of the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (Nupes) was in achieving the "total rout" of an "arrogant" president in less than a month.