Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call two rounds of elections on 30 June and 7 July is seen by rivals and allies as a reckless gamble that is about to hand political power to the far right. The content of this website is the work of over 530 journalists who deliver high-quality, reliable and comprehensive news and innovative online services every day. This work is supported by additional revenue from advertising and subscriptions. From Athens to Berlin, governments are coalescing around an idea to turbocharge the economy. Tonight’s results can also be compared with the winners of the 2022 election. France’s leader has struggled to frame the July election as anything but a humiliating personal defeat.
The candidates
- The left-wing alliance secured 188 seats in the National Assembly, according to official results.
- In GraphsFrench voters returned to the polls on Sunday, July 7, to elect a new Assemblée Nationale and determine who will be in a position to govern France.
- POLITICO analyzes the vote that redrew French politics, in which the left beat Marine Le Pen’s far right.
- RN have 88 seats in the outgoing parliament, but polls suggest they could win 220 to 260.
France is on the cusp of a massive event, with the Paris Olympics running from 26 July to 11 August. Mr Macron had no need to call National Assembly elections for another three years. France has suffered a string of terror attacks in recent years which have strengthened the importance of security for many French voters. On security, Emanuel Macron has pledged to put thousands more police on the streets, after sharp criticism from Ms Le Pen.
What do the polls say?
The left-wing New Popular Front alliance landed a shock success in the French legislative election Sunday night. After the dissolution of the 16th legislature by Macron on 9 June 2024, the early legislative elections took place on 30 June and 7 July. While the National Rally was originally anticipated to obtain a relative majority, it came third behind the New Popular Front and Ensemble. Anyone who scores more than 50% of the vote with a turnout of at least a quarter of the local electorate wins automatically. That normally happens only in a handful of constituencies, but the RN believes this time it could win dozens.
Mr Bardella wants to ban French dual nationals from sensitive strategic posts, calling them “half-nationals”. He also wants to limit social welfare for immigrants and get rid of the automatic right to French citizenship for children with foreign-born parents. It’s happened before, with domestic policy in the hands instaforex review of the prime minister and foreign and defence policy in the hands of the president. The second round is a series of run-offs fought either by two, three or sometimes four candidates.
Analysts noted that the failure of any bloc to attain support from an absolute majority of deputies could lead to institutional deadlock because any government must be able to survive motions of no confidence against them. Although Macron can call a second snap election, he is unable to do so until at least a year after the 2024 election, as stipulated by the constitution. Ensemble (ENS) is a coalition of centrist parties, including Mr Macron’s Renaissance party; the pro-European MoDem; Horizons, a party founded by Edouard Philippe, a former prime minister; and others.
The wife of French President Emmanuel Macron features in new episodes released by Netflix on Thursday. They have promised to scrap the Macron pension and immigration reforms and their platform is otherwise based on the idea that “it’s either the far right, or us”. Instead, Mr Bardella focuses on cutting VAT (sales tax) on energy and a list of 100 essential goods and repealing the Macron pension reforms in a matter of months. For years Marine Le Pen has sought to “de-diabolise” or detoxify her party from the antisemitic and extremist roots of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and his fellow founders of the National Front, which she renamed as National Rally. But Mr Macron does have to reflect the make-up of the new Assembly, so if National Rally are the predominant party he could find it hard to choose someone else. Apparently Mr Macron had been thinking about calling an election for months, but it came out of the blue even for his closest colleagues.
What does the left promise?
Before the election, it held 88 seats in France’s National Assembly, but polls suggest it could become the biggest party after this election. A Kremlin-linked Russian bank financed some of Ms Le Pen’s previous election campaigns. Ms Le Pen says she would put forward Jordan Bardella, her 28-year-old party head, as a candidate for prime minister.
Analysts say it is unclear how the votes of the unsuccessful candidates may divide in the second round, and how many voters might simply stay at home. Overall, parties of the far left and far right gained over half the votes, whilst support for France’s traditional right and left plummeted. Eric Ciotti, head of the centre-right Republicans, is putting up more than 60 candidates in an alliance with the RN. Republicans who do not want to work with Ms Le Pen’s party instead have to stand under the banner of “the republican right”. Republicans dismayed by Mr Ciotti’s alliance have tried to oust him from the party, but that was provisionally overturned in the courts. Anti-Ciotti Republicans have said they are putting up nearly 400 candidates across the country.
On June 12th the party expelled Marion Maréchal, its former vice-president and Ms Le Pen’s niece, for telling people to support the RN in the upcoming election. Macron formally announced his candidacy for re-election on 3 March 2022, by which time he had already received well more than the sponsorships from elected officials to qualify for the ballot. None of the 12 candidates secured more than 50% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election on 10 April. Not for more than 20 years, as parliamentary elections now come hard on the heels of presidential votes, and voting preferences do not change much within that time. Newly appointed French leader faces an uphill battle to form a government with a fragmented parliament, an unhappy left wing, and a far right that wields key influence.
Deputies elected by constituency
Ms Le Pen has proposed a referendum on major reductions in immigration if she becomes president. Several polling companies are predicting that Mr Macron will win the second round. Marine Le Pen is from the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National) party. A charity cycle ride through France and Belgium will honour a former West Bromwich Albion player.
Who will control the National Assembly?
He has a big presence on TikTok but his biggest job has been as a member of the European Parliament since 2019. RN have 88 seats in the outgoing parliament, but polls suggest they could win 220 to 260. Some candidates may drop out before 7 July to give an ally a better chance of stopping a rival from winning, for example from the far right. RN is led by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella and in parliament by Marine Le Pen, who has fought for the presidency three times and lost each time. “France needs a clear majority if it is to act in serenity and harmony,” Mr Macron argues. Results will start to be published at 8 pm (Paris time) and trickle in throughout the evening.
Now the polls says her party could become the biggest in France, falling short of an absolute majority. His centrist Ensemble alliance of Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem is languishing luno exchange review in the polls, behind a swiftly formed left-wing New Popular Front, made up of Socialists, Greens, Communists and the far-left France Unbowed (LFI). Mr Macron clearly wanted to break a logjam, after his failure to secure an absolute majority in the National Assembly in June 2022. Passing laws has become a real headache – he had to force through pension reforms without a vote while tougher immigration rules required National Rally support. Estimates coming in from major polling institutes are based on voting samples in a certain number of key electoral districts. Official results are revealed throughout the night in each of France’s 577 constituencies.
French voters returned to the polls on Sunday, July 7, to elect the remaining members of the Assemblée Nationale. With 76 elected in the first round, on June 30, 501 seats were still to be filled in the second round. While candidates needed to obtain a score above 50% to be elected in the first round, in the run-off votes the candidate with the highest number of votes is elected, even if their score is below 50%. In the second round, Macron beat Le Pen with 58.5% of the vote to her 41.5%, a narrower margin than in the 2017 election. Turnout was 72.0%, the lowest in a presidential election run-off since 1969.[5] Le Pen conceded defeat after exit projections became available.