Rassemblement National is leading in the first round of voting in an important election that puts France on the path to a far-right government for the first time since World War II.
Polling agency forecasts suggest National Rally won a third of the vote in Sunday’s first round of parliamentary elections. At the other end of the political spectrum, early polls suggest the left-wing alliance, New Popular Front, has 29% of the vote. French president Emmanuel MacronThe centrists were in third place, with 20.5%.
Parties are competing for a total of 577 seats in the National Assembly, France’s equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives. Those who polled more than 12.5% of registered voters in their constituency, but did not cross the 50% threshold, will enter the second round next week.
Macron called the snap elections a day after his party was crushed by RN in the European parliamentary elections in June. His decision was widely seen as an attempt to turn voters away from political extremes, but his gamble backfired after a lightning-fast three-week campaign failed to turn the tide.
“The center has imploded,” Samantha de Bendern, geopolitical advisor for the news outlet La Chaine Info, said before the elections. “Macron miscalculated. He hoped that the moderate left and right would both come to him. Instead, they both joined the extremes.”
Macron shocked the world when he said snap elections were not required to do so, leading to extraordinarily high-stakes votes that could plunge France into political turmoil and leave his legacy in tatters.
According to Ipsos, turnout on Sunday was almost 60% just hours before the polls closed. This is estimated to be the highest percentage in the first round of parliamentary elections since 1986.
What’s next?
While the first round results provide a picture of overall voter sentiment, the composition of the French National Assembly remains to be seen as parties regroup, forge alliances in some constituencies and withdraw from others, ahead of the second vote on July 7 .
Although RN is likely to receive the most votes in the first round, an additional wave of support will be needed on July 7 to secure the remaining contested seats.
What is likely to result is a hung parliament, populated with opponents from opposing parties, creating the potential for political paralysis and damaging inaction, making it much more difficult to pass new legislation and make progress on any pending legislation.
If there is no majority, Macron will be tasked with appointing a prime minister from the parliamentary group with the most seats in the National Assembly. The prime minister will serve as head of government and oversee much of the day-to-day domestic policy, while the president will control foreign policy.
But the controversial composition of the government could turn this into a tumultuous process — a prime minister-designate could risk being ousted by a vote of no confidence if other parties join. France could find itself without a prime minister as political parties vie for power.
“Either we have no government, a technocratic government, or we negotiate for months about who should be prime minister,” De Bendern said. “A year and a day after the dissolution of parliament, Macron can call new parliamentary elections, so we will experience a year of chaos.”
The second round of voting, however, is more difficult to predict, as voters who voted for marginal parties in the first round can lend their votes to the leading parties.
Who are the far right?
Rassemblement National is the party that will receive the most votes. This is consistent with pre-election polls, which showed an increase in support for the far right and far left, while support for the center declined.
The standard bearer for the party in these elections is Jordan Bardellaa tight, media-savvy 28-year-old. A loyal protégé of Marine Le PenBardella, the party’s leader, was elected party chairman in 2022 (Le Pen is believed to be seeking the French presidency in 2027). With Bardella front and center, National Rally has wrested power from the center in this month’s EU parliamentary elections.
Bardella had pledged to wage a “cultural struggle” against Islam, opposed immigration, promoted a “France for the French” platform and supported policies that benefit the working class – a rejection of some of Macron’s most controversial policies, including pension reforms and the abolition of a tax on France’s richest people.
The party has also gained supporters after Marine Le Pen began to steer it away from its roots as an extremely ethnocentric party, as it was under her father. Jean Marie Le Penthe founder and president who led the party until 2011.
As leader of what was originally called the National Front, the elder Le Pen was openly racist and was convicted several times for making anti-Semitic comments and dismissing the Holocaust as a “detail” of history.
However, some RN members continue to hold racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic positions. According to a report published Thursday by France’s National Advisory Commission on Human Rights, 54% of RN supporters describe themselves as racist.
The far right has been on the eve of power for some time now. In 2017, Marine Le Pen came second after Macron as president. Macron then defeated her handily, but in 2022 he did so with a smaller majority, with Le Pen winning 41.45% of the vote in the second round.
Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris and a member of the Socialist Party, says she fears for the future of her country in the face of such extremism and calls Le Pen a huge risk.
“People in France say we have no experience with these people, but we did have that experience during the Second World War. … It’s a very, very big risk for democracy, for minorities, for women,” she told NBC News, referring to France’s Vichy government during World War II, which collaborated with the Nazis.
What does this mean for Macron?
Because his presidential term runs until 2027, Macron is not on the ballot, and he has said he would remain in office regardless of the election result. It now seems likely he will do so under a cloud of political embarrassment, humiliated by a fraught power-sharing arrangement.
With Macron’s centrists finishing a distant third in the first round, his next task could well be appointing a prime minister from an opposing group that may be hostile to the party.
During these periods of power sharing, the president is often relegated to a secondary role. The Prime Minister and Parliament are responsible for the country’s domestic policies, giving the President very limited power to block government policies.
Traditionally, the president is responsible for national defense and foreign affairs, but the French constitution does not provide a clear demarcation of power.
Bardella has said he would turn down the chance to become prime minister if voters did not give his party an absolute majority. However, it remains to be seen whether party leader Le Pen would let him reject power if the RN came so close.
The far-left coalition has not publicly announced the selection of a candidate for prime minister, although high-profile figures at that end of the ideological spectrum include Manuel Bompard of the far-left France Unbowed party and Raphaël Glucksmann of the Socialist Party.
How such political turbulence could affect the Olympics, which start less than three weeks after the second round in Paris, appears to be another flaw in Macron’s timing.
While the Olympics are normally a unifying celebration of diversity, they could very well take place under an openly xenophobic government, or no government at all.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
