France’s right-wing Rally National (RN) is expected to be elected as the largest party in power, but no party may win a clear majority in a closely contested election with the second round of voting starting this weekend.
The first round of voting took place on June 30th to decide representatives for 76 of the 577 constituencies in the French National Assembly. Candidates who did not receive a majority of the votes in the first round will advance to a second runoff election, scheduled for July 7th.
The few contests that were decided in the first round revealed a lot about voter sentiment and suggested problems for the current government, as the RN won a third of the vote, the most of any party.
The current government is the Ensemble, a coalition of political parties including French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance (RE), the Democratic Movement, Horizon, En Commune and the Progressive League. Regardless of the outcome of the parliamentary elections, Macron will remain president until elections in 2027.
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President Macron called the snap elections after the RN’s landslide victory in June’s European Parliament elections. Polls before the first round had predicted the RN would continue to lead, but more recent polls ahead of the runoff show the lead has narrowed and the RN is expected to fall short of a clear majority.
According to Reuters, Wednesday’s poll shows the RN is expected to end up winning between 190 and 220 seats, but would need 289 to control parliament. Moreover, the RN’s closest ally, the Republicans, are expected to win a maximum of around 50 seats, ruling out any sort of right-wing coalition to control parliament.
Supporters of Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far-right party, reacted after a projection based on the actual vote count in the electoral district of Hénin-Beaumont in northern France on June 30, 2024 was published. (AP/Thibault Camus)
The next largest coalition would be the New Popular Front, which is expected to win between 159 and 183 seats, while Macron’s coalition would come in third with around 110 to 135 seats. Macron has already ruled out a new coalition with the left-wing party Indefatigable France (LFI), according to French daily Le Figaro.
Many of Macron’s allies who made it to the runoff have already withdrawn to rally voters’ support and focus on the best non-RN candidates in each constituency. Former French prime minister Edouard Philippe told French television station TF1 he would vote for the Communist candidate to stop the RN from winning any seats.
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But Macron insisted that “the withdrawal of left-wing officials today in the face of the National Rally does not mean that the LFI will govern tomorrow.”
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal last month denounced LFI as being as extreme as RN and a danger to French society. Post on social media platform X “French disobedience energizes the National Assembly, and the National Assembly energizes French disobedience”
French President Emmanuel Macron (right) meets with Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far-right National Rally party, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on June 21, 2022. (Ludovic Marin/Pool/AP)
“They are stoking hatred, fear and division among the French people,” Attal added. “On June 30 and July 7, vote against the extremists and for the Republic!”
Opposition to the RN stems from the party’s roots as the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was repeatedly convicted of racist and anti-Semitic comments, including Holocaust denial, such as describing Nazi gas chambers as a historical “detail.”
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But as anti-Semitism continues to grow in Europe, Marine Le Pen is gaining support from some of France’s Jewish voters.
But her anti-Muslim views and comments have raised concerns among other voters. In 2017, she proposed expelling foreigners convicted of crimes or suspected of being radicalized from France, and said convicted extremists with dual nationality should be stripped of their French passports, according to Radio France International.
“The measures I want to implement will mean that many of these people (Islamist attackers) will not be able to be on the territory of our country or live freely,” she said in an interview on BFM television.
French President Emmanuel Macron and French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal attend the national memorial service for former Justice Minister Robert Badentelle at Place Vendôme in Paris on February 14, 2024. (Christian Liewig/Corbis/Getty Images)
If the polls predict a drop in votes, the most likely outcome for France would be for the party to be left in limbo as some kind of unwilling alliance is formed to install a leader. The British Conservative Party regained power from Labour in 2010 through a limbo alliance with the Liberal Democrats and ultimately won a majority in the next election.
But at the time, the Conservatives held 306 seats out of 650, making such an agreement much easier to broker. In France’s case, the RN would have needed to receive support from the other two parties or enter into some kind of alliance with its direct rivals.
The government has urged voters to do all they can to continue to reduce the chances of the RN taking control of parliament, and Attal argued that voters have a “responsibility” to prevent a RN victory.
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“The issue in the second round of voting on Sunday night is to do everything possible to ensure that the far right does not get an absolute majority,” Attal said during an appearance on France Interradio, Voice of America reported.
“I don’t want to have to block some French people by voting they don’t want,” he added, making clear: “I’m not talking about a coalition government. I don’t want to impose on the French people a coalition government that they did not choose.”
