French election: the left moves ahead, but a majority is still out of reach
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Exit polls, while definitive results from the French election are still awaited, show a sharp setback for the far right.
French election: the left moves ahead, but a majority is still out of reach
Exit polls, while definitive results from the French election are still awaited, show a sharp setback for the far right.
Article being updated
The far-right party Rassemblement National (Rn), led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, failed to secure a majority in the second round of France's legislative elections, held today, Sunday 7 July. On the contrary, as some observers had suggested in defiance of most official projections, the institutes Ipsos and Telan point to a victory for the Nouveau Front Populaire (Nfp) — the left-wing alliance bringing together Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise, Olivier Faure's Parti Socialiste and Marine Tondelier's Europe Ecologie Les Verts. And the Rn, if the figures are confirmed, will come in third place, behind Macron's centrists.
#ElectionsLegislatives2024 🗳️ 🇫🇷 :
➖ "Le président a le pouvoir et le devoir d'appeler le #NFP à gouverner", lance #Melenchon
➖ #MarineLePen estime que la victoire n'est que partie remise
Retrouvez les réactions et les résultats sur ➡️ go.france24.com/c9k
#Election2024
➖ "Le président a le pouvoir et le devoir d'appeler le #NFP à gouverner", lance #Melenchon
➖ #MarineLePen estime que la victoire n'est que partie remise
Retrouvez les réactions et les résultats sur ➡️ go.france24.com/c9k
#Election2024
The "two-candidate" strategy and record turnout
In many constituencies where run-offs were held, left-wing or centrist candidates who had finished third in last week's first round had withdrawn in order to give the candidate facing Rassemblement National a better chance of winning. This strategy, known in France as a "barrage", aimed to hold back the sovereignist wave and fears of an anti-democratic drift, and appears to have achieved the desired results. The elections in France took place in a tense atmosphere, with around 30,000 police officers called upon to ensure security in various cities.
In some cases, however, centrist candidates refused to stand aside in favour of those from the Nouveau Front Populaire: as a result, dozens of constituencies saw not "duels" but three-way contests.
The left asserts its right to govern France
The results are not yet final, and in the coming hours votes from major cities — where polling stations closed later than in the rest of the country — are expected to come in. What is known for certain is that turnout was very high, exceeding 67 per cent. Not since 1997 have so many French people gone to the polls. That figure is even higher than in the first round on 30 June. The projections and exit polls, in any case, show a clear advance for the left; the group of centrists supporting incumbent president Emmanuel Macron (Ensemble pour la République) is expected to come second in terms of seats. Le Pen's far right comes third. However, no one will hold the majority of 289 seats in parliament out of 577 needed to form a government independently. Negotiations to form a coalition will be anything but straightforward, given the distances between the three blocs. It is not ruled out, though, that the route of a minority government, drawn from the left, could be chosen — as was indeed the case over the past two years with the centrists, who enjoyed only a relative majority.
We refuse to enter into consultations with his party [Macron's, ed.] in order to reach compromises, especially after fighting without respite, for seven years, against his policies of social dismantlement and climate inaction.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Reactions, however, were swift. All the left's leaders immediately asserted their right to put forward the new prime minister, and stated that they would not accept compromises with President Macron's camp. In particular, they claimed the intention to implement three points considered fundamental to the programme: a freeze on the prices of essential goods, the repeal of the pension reform championed by Macron that sparked months of protests in France, and an increase in the Smic (the minimum wage) to 1,600 euros per month.
For his part, Macron adopted a wait-and-see stance, declaring that he wished to await the composition of the Assemblée Nationale before deciding on a course of action. The news of the Nouveau Front Populaire's victory was probably received with surprise at the Élysée: although no one knows what the president's true intentions were when he decided to dissolve parliament, the current scenario is the one that had been considered least likely. What remains is the political data expressed in the first round, when the Rn received 9 million votes — a measure of the discontent felt above all in rural France, which evidently felt more represented by the far right than by the left or the centre.