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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

“Our victory is only postponed.” Marine Le Pen put a brave face on the defeat for her far-right Rassemblement National party in France’s parliamentary election on Sunday. In reality, third place for the RN, according to provisional results, is a bitter disappointment. The party thought it would finally have the opportunity to show the French people it could govern, giving the party a springboard for the more important 2027 presidential election. But French voters turned out in droves to stop them.

One reason was that the RN proved to be not so detoxified, fielding candidates with extremist backgrounds or a record of racist and antisemitic statements. But more importantly, France’s so-called republican front — the willingness of its centrist and leftwing parties to join forces to thwart the far-right’s rise to power — proved resilient. The RN depicts this as a cynical game by the political establishment to lock it out of power. Voters, though, went along with it.

That alone will allow President Emmanuel Macron to argue that his election gamble (his allies prefer to call it a rational strategy worthy of Descartes) in the end paid off. He can say he broke the populist fever gripping the country, interrupting the far-right’s seemingly inexorable rise. Furthermore, his Ensemble alliance of centrist parties has performed considerably better than expected, coming in a strong second place. That keeps the centrists in the political game when at one stage they appeared to be heading for a rout.

However, Macron wanted a snap election with a lightning three-week campaign to be a moment of political “clarification” for France. It has provided anything but. Voters showed what they were against but not what they were for. The country now faces months, possibly years, of political uncertainty and unstable government. That in itself is bad news for France and its European partners.

France seems to be turning the clock back to the 4th Republic, the politically volatile postwar period when the presidency was weaker and a raucous parliament was supreme. In the past few weeks power has drained away from the Elysée palace to the National Assembly. A hitherto micromanaging president has been relegated to a back-seat role — symbolically, he made no appearance on Sunday night, instead issuing a statement saying he would await the “structuring” of forces in parliament before taking the “necessary decisions”.

Furthermore, Sunday’s vote was above all a victory for the leftwing Nouveau Front Populaire, formed in four days behind a radical tax-and-spend programme after Macron’s shock dissolution of parliament. It was the left that spearheaded an electoral pact to bar the far-right, which saved scores of seats for the centrists. After the first round it swiftly withdrew its third-placed candidates from three-way contests in seats across the country to prevent a split in the anti-RN vote, while the leaders of Macron’s alliance prevaricated (although their candidates did mostly follow suit).

As the largest bloc, the NFP will lay claim to the premiership and the right to form a government. That will be enough to unnerve markets, given its planned massive spending increases financed, in theory, by swingeing tax rises on the wealthy. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the belligerent leader of the far-left La France Insoumise, the biggest of the four parties in the NFP, said there could be no compromise on the left’s programme. But the NFP will fall well short of a governing majority. Suggestions on Sunday that it could implement its plans by decree smack of election night exuberance.

Macron’s camp is hoping that the left will eventually fragment under the strain of Melénchon’s intransigence and that it could then try to assemble some sort of coalition with the socialists, greens and other moderates. This could take weeks if not months. Even if the numbers add up, and it looks a stretch, the centre-left are likely to ask a high price — such as reversing Macron’s rise in the pension age from 62 to 64 or reimposing a wealth tax on financial assets — and will want the government under their control.

If there is no path to a majority, Macron may have to install a caretaker premier with a minimal mandate until fresh elections can be called in one-year’s time. With three more or less evenly sized political blocs unwilling to work with each other, France seems ungovernable. Throughout the forthcoming turmoil we can expect Le Pen and her number two Jordan Bardella to present themselves as the only alternative offering order and stability. Sunday’s defeat may then only look like a temporary setback.

Philadelphia radio station WURD has cut ties with a host who revealed President Joe Biden‘s team provided her pre-approved questions before a recent interview.

WURD president and CEO Sara M. Lomax announced that the station “mutually agreed to part ways” with Andrea Lawful-Sanders in a statement on Sunday after Lomax admitted that the “questions were sent to me for approval.”

Lomax noted that the interview “was arranged and negotiated independently” by Lawful-Sanders “without knowledge, consultation or collaboration with WURD management.” Using the campaign’s pre-approved questions “violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners,” said Lomax.

“WURD Radio remains an independent voice that our audience can trust will hold elected officials accountable,” she said. “As Pennsylvania’s only independent Black-owned talk radio station, WURD Radio has cultivated that trust with our audience over our 20-year history. This is something we take very seriously. Agreeing to a pre-determined set of questions jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice that WURD Radio engages in or endorses as a matter of practice or official policy.”

Lomax added, “WURD Radio is not a mouthpiece for the Biden or any other Administration.”

Lawful-Sanders previously asked Biden four questions on WURD’s The Source after his debate with former President Donald Trump last month. “The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved of them,” she told CNN.

“I got several questions. Eight of them,” added Lawful-Sanders. “And the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved.”

Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt told The New York Times in a statement that providing preferred topics is “not uncommon,” but noted they “do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions.”

“Hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners,” added Hitt.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin radio host Earl Ingram also admitted to ABC News that he “was given some questions for Biden” in their interview, noting he was given five questions but was only able to ask four.

“To think that I was gonna get an opportunity to ask any question to the President of the United States, I think, is a bit more than anybody should expect,” said Ingram, adding: “Certainly the fact that they gave me this opportunity … meant a lot to me.”

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

France’s anti far-right alliance is on track to halt the rise of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, in a snap parliamentary election that leaves the Eurozone’s second-largest economy in limbo over its next government.

Provisional estimates from four pollsters suggest the RN, which was hoping to secure an outright majority in the National Assembly, may have been pushed into second or third place by a surge in support for the left.

The projections suggest the leftwing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) could become the largest parliamentary force with anywhere from 170 to 215 seats, according to Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay and Elabe.

But President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists were running close behind, with pollsters predicting ranges of 140 to 180 seats, a big drop from the roughly 250 they held in the outgoing National Assembly.

No single bloc has come close to securing an outright parliamentary majority, according to the estimates.

The projections come after the NFP was hastily formed between the far left La France Insoumise (LFI), the centrist Parti Socialiste (PS), the Communists and Greens a month ago, to help block the RN from power.

There were gasps of horror and tears at the RN electoral party as the first results estimates came in on Sunday.

A stunned silence replaced flag waving and chants that came after last week’s first round in the parliamentary election.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, chief of the hard left LFI, has called on Macron to offer the NFP the opportunity to form a government. “The will of the people must be strictly respected . . . The defeat of the president and his coalition is confirmed,” he said.

The polls were met with elation at the PS election event in Belleville, Paris, with chants of “front populaire” and a round of La Marseillaise.

“It’s brilliant, of course it’s brilliant,” Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the PS mayor of Rouen and a leading figure in the party, told the Financial Times.

The projected results suggest that the co-ordinated anti-RN strategy, under which the left and centre tactically withdrew their candidates from run-off ballots, had paid off.

After the first round, Le Pen was confidently predicting that a governing majority was within the RN’s reach.

If confirmed in final voting tallies, the projections suggest that none of the three main blocs will be able easily to command a governing majority, potentially leaving France in a period of political gridlock.

The uncertainty will have repercussions both for France and the EU, given Paris’ outsized role in influencing the bloc’s policy, together with Germany.

Financial markets had been jittery before the first round when the RN was polling strongly, but have since calmed as a hung parliament appeared more likely.

The NFP has proposed a heavy tax-and-spend economic programme, which would be a major break with Macron’s business friendly agenda and tax-cutting zeal.

In the French system, the president chooses the prime minister, who typically comes from the party with the biggest delegation in the National Assembly even if it does not have an outright majority. 

Macron could seek to cobble together a coalition of MPs from different parties on the left, centre and right, but excluding the RN and the far-left LFI.

Such an arrangement would amount to a “cohabitation”, and forging this kind of deal might prove difficult given the parties’ wide policy differences. 

A last resort would be naming a technocratic government to be led by an experienced but non-partisan figure, although this is not at all in the French political tradition. 

While the pollsters’ projections are far better than expected for Macron, his authority will still emerge weakened from the snap election.

Macron in June took a gamble in calling for the early vote after his centrist Ensemble alliance was trounced by Le Pen’s RN in European parliamentary elections.

The president defended the move, which stunned and angered many even in his own camp, as a necessary moment of “clarification”.

Bernard Sananes, head of Elabe, said: “It’s the victory of the Republican Front. Vote transfers have been excellent. Where the RN was in the second round, turnout increased.”