President Emmanuel Macron’s parliamentary faction was completely wiped out in a surprise snap election he called just three weeks ago, leaving Le Pen’s party seeking to almost triple its seats.
In France, the first round of voting in the week-long parliamentary elections closed this week. While the actual distribution of seats is not entirely clear, exit polls after this knockout round have given a confident answer that Marine Le Pen’s nationalist populist party, the Rally National (RN), won. According to the exit polls, her faction won 34 percent of the vote, the left-wing coalition formed for this election won 29 percent, and President Macron’s ensemble won just 20 percent.
In terms of seats, any party or group would need to win 289 seats in the 577-seat parliament. A series of exit polls suggest that by the end of the day next Sunday, the RN may only have 250 seats, but depending on the outcome of the second round of voting, it could win 310. This is a huge leap for the RN, considering that last time, Le Pen’s party had just 88 deputies in parliament.
Exit Poll, Ellerbe, France:
Parliamentary Election Report (Seat Allocation)
RN and Allies – ID: 260-310
NFP-Left|G/EFA|S&D: 115-145
Ensemble-RE: 90-120
LR/Divers Droite-EPP: 30-50
Diver Gauche-*: 10-15
Divers-*: 8-12
Sovereign Candidate-*: 0-1➤ https://t.co/oL97q6mlTg… pic.twitter.com/UDCzbPy51r
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) June 30, 2024
In a speech this evening, Marine Le Pen called on voters to support her in a second round of voting to give her party an absolute majority in the lower house of parliament, allowing them to elect the next prime minister and begin the end of President Emmanuel Macron. She boasted that her faction had effectively “wiped out the Macron camp.”
More detailed results are expected to be released tonight and on Monday, as campaigning continues into the week before the final head-to-head showdown next week.
In the French electoral system, where the final round takes place one week after the knockout round, there is a unique tradition of political parties issuing strategic voting guidelines to voters and maneuvering among themselves to maximize their chances of defeating the first-place candidate. For example, Le Pen’s RN has become the largest party and will be competing in many constituencies next Sunday, which is All other parties Unite around one opposing figure.
The system makes it difficult to predict the final outcome, and exit polls have a very wide margin of error, so it’s clear much is still undecided. President Macron has already called on Americans to vote against the right next week.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, speaks at her party headquarters after voting in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections, Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Henin-Beaumont, France. Le Pen’s National Rally party is on track to win a landslide victory in France’s first round of parliamentary elections, dealing a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron and setting the stage for a far-right party to take power for the first time in the country’s modern history. Photo by Cyril Marcilassy/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Although not common, in limited circumstances a candidate can win by receiving more than 50% of the vote. and These votes represent more than 25% of the registered voters in that district, a feat that, at the time of writing, appears to be only a handful of people who have managed to achieve, including Marine Le Pen herself, who won 58% in the Pas-de-Calais department.
The unlucky man was François Hollande, a former French president and very noble figure who returned to politics to run for a seat in the National Assembly, only to receive 37 percent of the vote in the Corrèze constituency where he has dominated politics for decades and where he will face off against the RN next week.
Macron called the election earlier this month after suffering a crushing defeat to Le Pen in the Europe-wide Brussels elections. If his intention was to consolidate his authority and avoid the label of a lame-duck president (assuming there is no 4D chess game here), he appears to have failed spectacularly. As reported earlier in the day, one French newspaper has already reported that Macron’s camp intends to call the election. another Presumably to punish the French people for not doing as they were told.
