Unlock Free Editor’s Note
Roula Khalaf, FT Editor, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party defeated President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition in the first round of France’s snap parliamentary elections, moving the country closer to a potential nationalist government that could advance the European project.
After an unusually high turnout, the Rassemblement National (RN) party won 33.2% of the vote, while the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) coalition came in second with 28.1%, according to pollster Ipsos’ projections at around 10 p.m. local time. Macron’s Ensemble coalition won 21% of the vote.
Projections show the RN and its allies are on track to win the most seats in parliament and could even win an absolute majority in the final round of voting on July 7.
If the RN wins 289 of the 577 seats in the lower house, it would force Macron to accept an uneasy power-sharing arrangement known as “coexistence” in which the two opposition parties must govern together.
However, the vote has resulted in an unprecedented number of three-way elections, making it difficult to predict the number of seats. Ipsos estimates there will be 285 to 315 potential three-way elections in the second round, assuming no candidates withdraw.
A period of intense negotiations will begin between left-wing and centrist parties over whether some seats should be abandoned to prevent the RN from winning. Parties must complete their candidate lists within 48 hours.
Speaking from Hénin-Beaumont, her constituency in northern France where she was easily re-elected, Le Pen hailed the poll results as “practically eliminating” Macron’s centrist bloc.
“The French people have expressed their desire to turn the page after seven years of a government that despises them,” she told cheering supporters waving French flags.
“Faced with the Rassemblement National, it is time for a clear, grand coalition between democratic and republican forces for the second round,” Macron said.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, appointed by Macron, said his campaign priority was “to prevent the RN from gaining an absolute majority in the second round and ruling the country with its disastrous project”.
The Ensemble said its candidates would drop out in areas where they had come third to make way for candidates “capable of defeating the RN and with whom we share the essential: republican values”.
The conservative Les Républicains (LR) party has refused to advise voters to reject the far-right party in the second round of voting.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the NFP’s far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party, has called for the withdrawal of all third-place left-wing candidates to defeat the RN.
The euro rose 0.2% against the US dollar in early Asian trading. At $1.0744, this was the euro’s highest level against the dollar since last Tuesday.
France’s surprise vote backfired on Macron, who called for a vote last month after his centrist coalition lost to the RN in the European parliamentary elections — a move that stunned the public and angered many in his own camp.
His coalition could end up losing more than half of its roughly 250 seats in the lower house, as it is squeezed between a rising far right and a newly unified left.
In contrast, the far right, which had not held power since the Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis, could move from the political margins to the center of government.
This would be the culmination of Le Pen’s decades-long efforts to “detoxify” the party, including ousting her father, who founded the party with a former Waffen-SS soldier. of Nazi Germany.
Many French voters have rejected Macron, whom they see as elitist and aloof, and prefer RN for its emphasis on cost of living and wage issues, in addition to its anti-immigration stance traditional.
There have been three cohabitations in France’s postwar history, but none involving parties with such diametrically opposed views.
If RN wins a majority and forms a government, Le Pen has said her 28-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella will hold the position of prime minister.
They will run internal affairs and set the budget, while Macron remains commander-in-chief of the armed forces and sets foreign policy.
In recent days, Le Pen and Bardella have both hinted that they would challenge Macron’s authority, including on defense and foreign policy — a prospect that could unsettle allies and markets alike.
The NFP also performed well in the first round as voters backed an economic agenda that focused on taxes and spending, while also focusing on social justice and more investment to improve public services.
The NFP’s dominant party is the LFI. It also includes the centre-left Socialists, the Greens and the Communists, whose policies differ sharply from the LFI and have so far rejected Mélenchon as their prime ministerial candidate.
Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at Sciences Po university in Paris, said it was too early to make an accurate prediction about the number of seats.
“There are two unknowns in the second round — how many candidates will drop out and how left-wing and centrist voters will behave if they know that the RN is on the verge of taking power,” he said.
The best scenario for Macron at this point would be a hung parliament in which none of the three blocs can win a majority.
There will be deadlock, but he could make a last-ditch effort to form a technocratic government. Macron cannot dissolve parliament again until a year from now.
