The French far-right gains at the first round of the legislative elections
The National Rally, the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, won first place in the first round of French legislative elections.
The National Rally received 34% of the votes cast, according to preliminary estimates, down slightly from last week’s opinion polls that put the party and its allies at 36%.
If confirmed, it would mark a significant rise for Le Pen’s party, formerly called the National Front, as support for centrist President Emmanuel Macron wanes.
But that may not be enough to secure a majority in France’s legislature, where think tanks expect Le Pen and her Republican allies to win between 230 and 280 seats, just below the absolute majority of 289.
For the first time in France, under the Fifth Republic, the far-right is winning the first round of legislative elections.
Preliminary results showed that Macron’s coalition received 20.3% of the vote, down from the 2022 legislative elections, but improved compared to the last EU elections, where it received only 14.6%.
It also noted that left-wing parties, including the New Popular Front, an alliance formed after elections were called by the Socialist Party, the Greens, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Free France Party, received 28.1% of the vote.
According to these results, Macron could eventually get only 70-100 seats, while the New Popular Front would get 125-165, in a left-wing bloc dominated by Mélenchon.
This looks like a bad night for right-wing leader Eric Zemmour, whose party’s approval rating has fallen below 1%, votes that are likely to go to his rival Le Pen, as far-right voices hold together.
The party with an absolute majority will have the right to appoint the prime minister and government – although Macron himself has said he won’t resign as president.
This mosaic that will form in parliament could emerge new alliances, which was last done from 1997 to 2002, when conservative President Jacques Chirac met with Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
Meanwhile, the vote count won’t give the final result, as the most successful candidates in each constituency will move on to a second round on July 7.
Next week will see a great deal of negotiations, with candidates likely to strike electoral agreements or even withdraw, meaning the end result could look very different.
In a speech just after the polls closed, Mélenchon promised to withdraw from any constituency in which he finished third, a way to avoid splitting votes and giving additional seats to Le Pen.
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella confirmed on Sunday evening that he intended to be “prime minister of all the French people”.
He called on voters to “remain mobilized in the last effort during the second round of elections” for “one of the most decisive votes in the history of France”.
For her part, the leader of the far-right National Rally Marine Le Pen declared that “Macron’s camp has been practically wiped out,” commenting on her party’s wide lead Sunday in the first round of early legislative elections in France.
Le Pen, who was elected lawmaker for her northern constituency, said the French had shown their “will to turn the page on seven years of contempt and erosion” for President Emmanuel Macron, calling on the French to give her National Rally party an “absolute majority”.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called for a “broad democratic and republican alliance” in the second round of legislative elections against the far-right National Rally party, after topping the results of the first round.
Macron said in a written statement that the large participation in the first session… It shows the importance of this vote for all our citizens, and the will to clarify the political situation”.
Macron added in his written statement, “In the face of the National Rally, it’s now the time for a broad coalition to be clearly Democratic and Republican in the second round”.
