Far-right leads first round of French parliamentary elections

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party led the first round of French parliamentary elections on Sunday (30), bringing the party closer to an unprecedented position in power.

After an exceptionally high turnout, the RN bloc won 33.15% of the vote, while the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition came in second with 27.99% and President Emmanuel Macron’s alliance dropped to third place with 20.76%, according to final results published by the Interior Ministry on Monday (1).

While the RN appears on track to win the most seats in the National Assembly, it may fall short of the 289 seats needed for an outright majority, suggesting France could be headed for a hung parliament and more political uncertainty.

Projections show that after the second round of voting next Sunday (7), the RN would win between 230 and 280 seats in the 577-seat lower house – a surprising increase from its tally of 88 in the outgoing parliament. The NFP was projected to secure between 125 and 165 seats, with Macron’s Ensemble trailing behind on somewhere between 70 and 100 seats.

A total of 76 candidates were elected to the French parliament in the first round, of which 39 represented the RN, 32 were from the NFP and two from Macron’s alliance, according to results published on Monday (1).

The election, which Macron called after his party was defeated by the RN in European Parliament elections earlier this month, could leave him in an uneasy partnership with the opposition for the next three years of his presidential term.

The RN branch in the northern town of Henin Beaumont erupted in celebration when the results were announced – but Marine Le Pen was quick to stress that next Sunday’s vote would be crucial.

“Democracy has spoken and the French people have put the National Rally and its allies first – and virtually erased the Macronist bloc,” she told a crowd, adding: “Nothing has been gained – and the second round will be decisive.”

In a speech at RN headquarters in Paris, Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old leader, echoed Le Pen’s message.

“The vote that will take place next Sunday is one of the most decisive in the entire history of the Fifth Republic,” said Bardella.

In optimistic speeches ahead of the first round, Bardella said he would refuse to govern in a minority government, in which the RN would require the votes of its allies to pass laws. If the RN fails to secure an absolute majority and Bardella holds true to his word, Macron may then have to look for a prime minister on the radical left, or somewhere else entirely, to form a technocratic government.

Following news of the results on Sunday night, anti-far-right protests erupted in Paris and Lyon, with around 5,500 people gathering at the capital’s Place de la Republique, according to the CNN BFMTV.

Reuters later released a video of protesters setting off fireworks as they marched through Paris. While BFMTV reported that 200 police officers had been deployed to Lyon to deal with the protests.

Cordon sanitaire

With an unprecedented number of seats going to a three-way runoff, a week of political horse-trading will now follow as centrist and left-wing parties decide whether or not to give up individual seats to block the nationalist, anti-immigrant RN movement – ​​long a pariah in French politics – from gaining a majority.

When the RN – under its previous name, the National Front – performed strongly in the first round in the past, left and centrist parties joined forces to prevent them from taking office, under a principle known as the “cordon sanitaire”.

After Jean-Marie Le Pen – Marine’s father and decades-long leader of the National Front – unexpectedly defeated Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin in the 2002 presidential election, the Socialists backed center-right candidate Jacques Chirac in the second round.

In a bid to deny the RN a majority, the NFP – a left-wing coalition formed earlier this month – has promised it will withdraw all its candidates if it comes third.

“Our instruction is clear – not one more vote, not one more seat for the National Rally,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise – the NFP’s largest party – told supporters on Sunday.

“We have a long week ahead of us, each person will make their decision consciously, this decision will determine, in the long term, the future of our country and each of our destinies”, added Mélenchon.

Marine Tondelier, leader of the Green Party – a more moderate part of the NFP – made a personal appeal to Macron to step down in certain seats to deny the RN a majority.

“We’re counting on you: withdraw if you place third in a three-way race, and if you don’t qualify for the runoff, urge your supporters to vote for a candidate who supports Republican values,” she said.

Macron’s Ensemble allies also called on their supporters to prevent the far-right takeover, but warned against lending their votes to the firebrand Mélenchon.

Gabriel Attal, Macron’s protégé and outgoing prime minister, urged voters to prevent the RN from winning a majority, but said Mélenchon’s France Insoumise party “is preventing a viable alternative” to a far-right government.

Former Prime Minister Eduoard Philippe, another Macron ally, said: “No votes should be given to the candidates of the National Rally, but also to the candidates of France Insoumise, with whom we differ on fundamental principles.”

It is unclear whether tactical voting can prevent the RN from winning a majority. In Sunday’s vote, the RN won support in places that would have been unthinkable until recently. In the 20th constituency of the Nord department, an industrial heartland, the Communist Party leader, Fabien Roussel, was defeated by an RN candidate with no previous political experience. The seat had been held by the Communists since 1962.

A big bet

Macron’s decision to call early elections — France’s first since 1997 — took the country and even his closest allies by surprise. Sunday’s vote came three years earlier than necessary and just three weeks after Macron’s Renaissance party was defeated by the RN in the European Parliament elections.

Macron has promised to serve out the remainder of his final presidential term, which runs until 2027, but now faces the prospect of having to appoint a prime minister from an opposition party – in a rare arrangement known as “cohabitation”.

The French government has little trouble passing laws when the president and the majority in parliament belong to the same party. When they don’t, things can grind to a halt. While the president determines the country’s foreign, European and defense policy, the parliamentary majority is responsible for passing domestic laws, such as pensions and taxes.

But these powers could overlap, potentially sending France into a constitutional crisis. Bardella, for example, has ruled out sending troops to help Ukraine resist a Russian invasion — an idea floated by Macron — and has said he would not allow Kiev to use French military equipment to attack targets inside Russia. It is unclear whose will will prevail in disputes like these, where the line between domestic and foreign policy is blurred.

A far-right government could spell financial and constitutional crisis. The RN has made lavish spending promises – from scrapping Macron’s pension reforms to cutting taxes on fuel, gas and electricity – at a time when France’s budget could be savagely slashed by the European Union.

With one of the eurozone’s highest deficits, France may have to embark on a period of austerity to avoid falling foul of the European Commission’s new fiscal rules. But if implemented, the new government’s spending plans would send France’s deficit soaring – a prospect that has alarmed markets and prompted warnings of a “Liz Truss-style financial crisis”, referring to the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.

In a terse statement on Sunday night, Macron said the high turnout showed “French voters’ desire to clarify the political situation” and urged his supporters to turn out in the second round.

“In light of the National Rally, the time has come for a broad, clearly democratic and republican rally for the second round,” he stated.