Far Right Leads First Round of France’s Parliamentary Election in Blow to Macron, Projection Shows
France’s President Emmanuel Macron leaves the polling booth prior to casting his vote in the first round of parliamentary elections at a polling station in Le Touquet, northern France, on June 30, 2024. A divided France is voting in high-stakes parliamentary elections that could see the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic party of Marine Le Pen sweep to power in a historic first. The candidates formally ended their frantic campaigns at midnight June 28, with political activity banned until the first round of voting.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party has taken the lead in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, initial projections show, bringing it closer to power than ever before.
After an unusually high turnout, the RN bloc leads with 34% of the vote. The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition is in second with 28.1%, while President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble alliance slumped to a dismal third with 20.3%, according to initial estimates by Ipsos.
Although the RN appears on track to win the most seats in the National Assembly, it may fall short of the 289 seats required for an absolute majority, suggesting France may be heading for a hung parliament and more political uncertainty.
Projections indicate that, after the second round of voting next Sunday, the RN would win between 230 and 280 seats in the 577-seat lower house – a staggering rise from its count of 88 in the outgoing parliament. The NFP is projected to secure between 125 and 165 seats, with Ensemble trailing with between 70 and 100 seats.
High Stakes and Historic Shifts
The election, called by Macron after his party was battered by the RN in European Parliament elections earlier this month, could leave him to see out the remaining three years of his presidential term in an awkward partnership with a prime minister from an opposition party.
The RN election party in the northern town of Henin Beaumont erupted in celebration as the results were announced, but Marine Le Pen stressed that next Sunday’s vote will be key.
“Democracy has spoken, and the French people have placed the National Rally and its allies in first place – and has practically erased the Macronist bloc,” she told a jubilant crowd, adding, “Nothing has been won – and the second round will be decisive.”
In a speech at the RN’s headquarters in Paris, Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old leader and its choice to become prime minister, echoed Le Pen’s message.
“The vote taking place next Sunday is one of the most decisive in the entire history of the Fifth Republic,” Bardella said.
In bullish speeches before the first round, Bardella said he would refuse to govern a minority government, in which the RN would require the votes of allies to pass laws. If the RN falls short of an absolute majority and Bardella stays true to his word, Macron might then have to search for a prime minister on the hard left or elsewhere to form a technocratic government.
Political Bargaining Ahead
With an unprecedented number of seats going to a three-way run-off, a week of political bargaining will now ensue as centrist and left-wing parties decide whether or not to stand down in individual seats to block the nationalist and anti-immigrant RN from winning a majority.
When the RN, under its previous name, the National Front, performed strongly in the first round of votes in the past, left-wing and centrist parties united to block them from taking office under a principle known as the “cordon sanitaire.”
After Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, unexpectedly defeated the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin in the 2002 presidential election, the Socialists swung their weight behind the center-right candidate Jacques Chirac, delivering him a landslide in the second-round runoff.
In an attempt to deny the RN a majority, the NFP – a left-wing coalition that formed earlier this month – promised to withdraw all of its candidates who came in third place in the first round.
“Our instruction is clear – not one more vote, not one more seat for the National Rally,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of France Unbowed – the largest party in the NFP – told supporters Sunday.
A huge gamble, Macron’s decision to call a snap election took the country and even his closest allies by surprise. Sunday’s vote was held three years earlier than necessary and just three weeks after Macron’s Renaissance party was trounced by the RN at the European Parliament elections.
Macron has pledged to see out the remainder of his final presidential term, which runs until 2027, but he now faces the prospect of having to appoint a prime minister from an opposition party – in a rare arrangement known as “cohabitation.”
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