France’s frantic new week of campaigning begins on Monday, a day after the far-right National Rally party dominated the first round of legislative elections, drawing an unusually large number of voters and handing President Emmanuel Macron a heavy blow. blow.
Voters are asked to choose their representatives in the 577-seat National Assembly, the country’s lower-ranking parliament. They will return to the polls on July 7 for the second round of voting.
A new anti-Macron majority would force him to appoint a political rival as prime minister, dramatically altering France’s domestic policy and disrupting its foreign policy. This will be especially true if he is forced to govern with Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old president of the National Rally.
Without a clear majority, the country could be plunged into months of political gridlock or instability. Mr Macron has ruled out resigning and calling new legislative elections in a year’s time.
The nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally party took the lead in national legislative elections for the first time in history with about 34% of the vote, as first-round voting projections came in on Sunday. The New Popular Front, a broad coalition of left-wing parties, won about 29% of the vote; Mr Macron’s centrist Ennahda party and its allies won about 22%; and mainstream conservatives received only about 10%. Rate.
Here are four takeaways from the first round to help make sense of the election so far.
An unusually high number of voters turned out at the polls.
Legislative elections in France are usually held weeks after the presidential election and usually favor the party that wins the presidency. That makes the legislative vote unlikely to appeal to voters, many of whom feel as if the outcome is foregone.
But this vote – when Macron unexpectedly called early elections – was different. Sunday’s participation rate exceeded 65%, much higher than the 47.5% in the first round of the last congressional election in 2022.
The jump reflects strong interest in high-stakes races and a belief among voters that their votes could fundamentally change the course of Macron’s presidency.
The end result is particularly difficult to predict.
To gain an outright majority, a party needs 289 seats, and France’s main pollster has issued cautious forecasts suggesting the National Assembly could win between 240 and 310 seats in the next round of voting.
They said the New Popular Front alliance could win 150 to 200 seats, while Mr Macron’s Ennahda party and its allies could win 70 to 120 seats.
But using first-round results to predict second-round results has been tricky because of the nature of France’s electoral system. Legislative elections are essentially 577 different races.
Under certain conditions, the candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round wins outright. On Sunday, pollsters expected at least 60 candidates to be directly elected this way.
But most seats will be decided only after a runoff between the two candidates with the highest votes.
Pollsters predict at least 390 runoffs for the National Rally and its allies, at least 370 for the New Popular Front and 290 for Mr Macron’s centrist coalition.
A lot can happen between rounds.
To complicate matters further, some precinct runoffs could feature three or even four candidates, if they can garner enough votes. Usually, this situation is rare. But on Sunday, as participation surged, that wasn’t the case.
In 2022, there will be only eight triples. This time, pollsters expect the number to exceed 200.
Many parties – especially those on the left – have said they will elect a third candidate to help prevent the far right from winning. But there was still some confusion Sunday night.
For example, some of Macron’s allies have suggested that his party or its allies should not withdraw candidates because it would help candidates from France’s far-left Indomitus party. Accused of anti-Semitism. Others say the far right must be stopped at all costs.
Next could be a far-right government or gridlock.
Two outcomes are most likely.
Only a national assembly can achieve a sufficient absolute majority. If that happens, Mr Macron will have no choice but to appoint Mr Bardera as prime minister. He would then form a cabinet and take control of domestic policy.
Traditionally, in such cases, the president retains control over foreign policy and defense matters, but the constitution does not always provide clear guidelines.
That would leave an anti-immigration, Eurosceptic far-right party ruling a country that has been at the heart of the European project. Bardera could clash with Macron over issues such as France’s contribution to the EU budget or its support for Ukraine’s war with Russia.
Thousands of mostly left-wing demonstrators gathered in central Paris on Sunday night to protest against nationwide rallies.
If the national rally fails to secure an absolute majority – Bardera has said he would not govern without an absolute majority – Macron could face an unruly lower house with blocs on the left and right opposing him. His centrist coalition is severely weakened and, caught between extremes, will become relatively powerless.
The government has announced a pause in plans to tighten unemployment benefits rules that have angered unions. Macron’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, all but admitted in a speech that his party’s influence would soon be declining.
“The stakes in the second round are to deprive the far right of its absolute majority,” he said. He said the party’s goal was to have “sufficient weight” to cooperate with other parties.
It is unclear who Macron might appoint as prime minister in the event of a hung parliament.
The president can try to build alliances, but unlike Germany, France is not accustomed to doing so. It is also not accustomed to the concept of a caretaker government, which handles the day-to-day affairs of the country until a political breakthrough occurs, as has happened in Belgium.
The far right has penetrated all sectors of the population.
The victory at the national rally once again showed that the party’s years-long journey from the fringes of French politics to the golden halls of the French Republic is largely complete. Its vote share nearly doubled from 2022, when it received 18.68% of the vote in the first round of parliamentary elections.
A study released on Sunday clearly illustrates the extent to which the party has broadened its voter base.
The Ipsos pollster conducted a study of a representative sample of 10,000 registered voters before the election and found that the national assembly electorate had “grown and diversified”.
The pollster said in its analysis that the party still has the highest support among the working class, noting that it received 57% of the blue-collar vote.
But Ipsos said the party’s electoral base had “widened significantly” beyond those categories, noting that its score improved by 15% among retirees, women, voters under 35, high-income voters and voters in big cities. to 20 percentile residents.
“Ultimately, the national rally vote has spread, creating an electorate that is more homogeneous than before and very much in line with the French population as a whole,” the pollster said.
Segolena Lestradic Reporting from Herning-Beaumont, France.
