After the celebrations in Paris and other European capitals, it is now time to face reality and design strategies to move forward in a country truly divided

A broad coalition of political forces, ranging from allies to adversaries, managed to prevent the French extreme right, led by Marine le Pen's National Rally party, from reaching an absolute majority in the National Assembly and being able to govern on its own.

It was a true national crusade that took place in barely a week, since after the first round of the legislative elections, held on June 30, extremism appeared at the top of all projections, which would have been a hard blow to progressive efforts.

Finally, the winner in a vote with a record turnout of 59.71% was the New Popular Front, where Socialists, Communists and the followers of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder of the movement "La France Insoumise" are grouped, which won 190 out of 577 deputies.

The second place went to the revived coalition led by French President Emmanuel Macron, with 160 seats and to the third place was relegated National Rally, which has 140 seats.

It was thus possible to contain what seemed to be an avalanche of the extreme right, feared inside and outside the country.

After the celebrations in Paris and other European capitals, it is now time to face reality and design strategies to move forward in a country truly divided and where a basic distrust among the three main political forces will prevail.

The New Popular Front has a simple majority and this would allow to foresee a new head of government with a good number of progressive ministers, but it must be remembered that in politics two plus two does not always result in four.

Macron is not willing to govern with progressive forces and the same happens the other way around. In fact, the first declarations after the consultation at the polls are along these lines.

The leader of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, has already made it clear by expressing that this is above all a victory of the Popular Front that knew how to unite the left. We will not lend ourselves, he added, to any coalition of opposites that would betray the vote of the French and prolong the Macronist policies.

The path left for the governmental Renaissance party is then to negotiate with the dwindling forces of the Republicans, a grouping founded by Nicolas Sarkozy. It is a complex puzzle for the country that for the moment, less than three weeks before the Olympic Games, remains de facto without a government.