France will hold its first round of snap legislative elections on Sunday, a gamble President Macron unexpectedly announced this month that has plunged the country’s future into deep uncertainty.
Voters are electing 577 deputies to the National Assembly, the country’s lower house and more important parliament, which will determine the future of Macron’s second term.
A new majority of MPs against Macron would force him to appoint a political rival as prime minister, fundamentally changing France’s domestic policy and disrupting its foreign policy. Without a clear majority, the country could be plunged into months of unrest or political deadlock. Mr Macron has ruled out resigning and calling new legislative elections in a year’s time.
France’s nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally party is widely expected to dominate the race. A broad coalition of left-wing parties is likely to come in second place. Macron’s centrist Ennahda party and its allies are expected to lose many seats.
Voting will end at 6pm local time on Sunday for most polls, and as late as 8pm in major cities. National voting forecasts provided by polling agencies based on preliminary results are expected to be released after 8pm and are generally reliable. Official results from the Home Office will be announced overnight.
This is worth looking forward to.
Voting will take place in two rounds and participation is expected to be high.
France has 577 constituencies (one for each seat), covering the mainland, overseas departments and territories, and French citizens living abroad. In each constituency, seats are awarded to the candidate who receives the most votes.
Any number of candidates can compete in the first round in each constituency, but there are specific thresholds to advance to the second round, which will be held a week later on July 7.
In most cases, the second round consists of the two candidates with the most votes, and whoever wins the most votes in the runoff wins the race. But there are exceptions.
The candidate who gets more than 50% of the vote in the first round wins outright, as long as those votes represent at least a quarter of the registered voters in the constituency. Runoffs in some precincts could feature three or even four candidates if they can garner at least 12.5% of the vote of registered voters.
Both scenarios have been rare in past years but are more likely if voter abstention is low, as expected on Sunday. Most pollsters expect first-round voter participation to exceed 60%, compared with 47.5% in 2022.
Legislative elections in France typically take place weeks after presidential contests and often favor the party that just won the presidency, making them less likely to appeal to voters who believe the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
But the stakes are much higher this time.
The rise of the far right, the strength of the left-wing coalition, and the shrinking of the center are all around us.
The goal of each party and its allies is to gain enough seats to form a working majority. If they fail to do so, France could face months of political turmoil or gridlock.
But if control of the National Assembly falls to Macron’s opposition, he will be forced to appoint prime ministers and cabinets from different parties to control 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.
The National Rally leads the latest polls by a wide margin, with support from around 36% of voters. After lingering on the fringes for decades, the anti-immigration, Eurosceptic far-right has never been closer to taking over France, which would be a stunning development for a country that has always been at the heart of the European project. The nation rallied as the prime minister could clash with Macron over issues such as France’s contribution to the EU budget or its support for Ukraine against Russia.
A coalition made up of the Socialists, Greens, Communists and the far-left French Indies ranks second in the polls, with about 29% support, and believes it has a chance of defeating the far-right and forming its own government. The coalition wants to reverse some of the things Macron’s government has done over the past seven years, such as raising the mandatory retirement age. It also wants to eliminate corporate tax cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy, significantly increase social spending, and significantly increase the minimum wage.
The race is an uphill battle for Macron’s centrist party and its allies. Opinion polls place them in third place, with around 20%, and they are widely predicted to lose many of the 250 seats they hold. Several of Macron’s political allies are running – leaders of other centrist parties, some of Macron’s own ministers, even the prime minister – and for any of them, defeat would be a blow.
The first-round results may not accurately predict the direction of the vote.
In 2022, Macron’s centrist coalition and the left were evenly matched in the first round, leading all other parties with about a quarter of the vote each. A week later, both sides still lead – but Macron’s coalition has won nearly 250 seats and the left less than 150.
In other words, while first-round voting can be an indicator of the final outcome, it’s not a perfect predictor.
One way to analyze the first round is to look at national voting trends: What percentage of the vote did each party get across the country? It’s a good way to see whether polls are accurately predicting each party’s overall support and to understand which forces have momentum in the final week of campaigning.
But the national turnout masks the fact that France’s legislative elections essentially consist of 577 separate contests, with each seat decided only after a second round.
Each party’s prospects depend on how many runoffs their candidates make it to – the more they make it, the better their party’s chance of taking the lead on July 7. more clearly.
A lot happens between rounds. Voters whose preferred candidate doesn’t advance to a runoff will either switch to another candidate or stay home.
Parties will issue local or national voting recommendations in an attempt to influence the outcome. In the past, political parties often called on their members to strategically vote against the far right, but this strategy has failed.
Candidates can decide to withdraw from the three- or four-round contest if they are concerned about vote fragmentation; some left-wing parties have announced that they will encourage their candidates to do so.
The new week will also be a campaign one – plenty of time to deal with any gaffes, missteps or twists that could change the course of any game.
