PARIS (AP) — With the final outcome still uncertain, France’s Rassemblement National rushed Monday to take advantage of an inconclusive first round of voting in surprise parliamentary elections.
Round one on Sunday brought the National Rally closer to government than ever before, but left open the possibility that voters could still block the path to power in the decisive second round. France now faces two likely scenarios in what promises to be a heated final week of high-stakes campaigning.
Bolstered by a wave of support that made it the first-round winner but not yet the overall winner, the Rassemblement National and its allies could secure a working majority in parliament in the final round next Sunday. Or they could fall short, stymied at the final hurdle by opponents still hoping to prevent the formation of France’s first far-right government since World War II.
Both scenarios are uncertain for France and its influence in Europe and beyond.
“Imagine the image of France — the country of human rights, the country of the Enlightenment — suddenly becoming a far-right country, among others. This is unthinkable,” said Olivier Faure, a Socialist who comfortably retained his legislative seat.
The far right has played on voters’ frustration with inflation and low incomes, and the sense that many French families are being left behind by globalization. The party of Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen campaigned on a platform that promised to increase consumer spending power, reduce immigration and take a tougher line on European Union rules. The anti-immigration agenda has contributed to many French citizens of immigrant backgrounds feeling unwelcome in their own country.
If Le Pen were to win 289 or more lawmakers in the 577-seat National Assembly, it would give her an outright majority and the means to force President Emmanuel Macron to accept her 28-year-old protégé. Jordan Bardellaas the new Prime Minister of France.
Such a power-sharing arrangement between Bardella and the centrist president would be uncomfortable and conflict-provoking. Macron has said he will not step down until his second term ends in 2027.
Getting close to 289 seats could also work for Le Pen. By promising to get government posts, she could win over enough new lawmakers.
A National Government Rally in France would be an additional triumph for far-right and populist parties elsewhere in Europe, which have steadily gained a place in the political mainstream and taken power in some countries, including Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will hold the rotating presidency of the European Union for the next six months.
But the first round of the French vote was also so inconclusive that the alternative possibility arose that France’s complex two-round system would also not allow any bloc to secure a clear and workable majority.
This would put France in uncharted territory.
But Le Pen’s opponents still find that scenario more appealing than a victory for her party, which has a history of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and hostility toward French Muslims, as well as historical ties to Russia and a more hostile stance toward the EU.
“We are facing a ‘Trumpization’ of French democracy,” warned MP Sandrine Rousseau, an ecologist who was also re-elected in the first round. “The second round will be absolutely crucial.”
The election, so tense because of the high stakes and the tight time frame, has overshadowed preparations for the Paris Olympics, which begin in less than a month.
Candidates who did not win outright in the first round but qualified for the second round have until Tuesday at 6 p.m. to decide whether to stay in the race or withdraw. By withdrawing, opponents of the National Rally could divert votes to other candidates who are better positioned to defeat the far right next Sunday.
Some candidates voluntarily announced that they would step aside, making defeating the Rassemblement National their top priority. In other cases, party leaders set the direction, saying they would withdraw candidates in some districts in the hope of blocking Le Pen’s path to power. She inherited her party, then called the Front National, from her father, Jean Marie Le Penwho has been convicted several times for racist and anti-Semitic hate speech.
All told, the National Rally and its allies won a third of the national vote on Sunday, official results showed. The New Popular Front, a left-wing coalition of parties that banded together in the rapid, three-week campaign to defeat the far right, took 28%, followed by Macron’s centrist camp in third place with 20%. But the 577 seats are chosen by district, so while national results give a general idea of how each camp fared, they don’t indicate exactly how many seats the groups will ultimately win.
Bardella urged voters to give him a majority, saying they face a choice between left-wing “arsonists” who pose an “existential threat” to France and his party’s offer of a “responsible break” with the Macron era.
Support for the National Rally and the New Popular Front was so strong that they both won more than 30 seats on Sunday, taking more than 50% of the vote in some districts. That means there will be no runoff in those districts.
Turnout was nearly 67%, the highest since 1997, ending nearly three decades of growing voter apathy toward legislative elections and, for a growing number of French people, toward politics in general.
Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called early elections on June 9, after a painful defeat by the Rassemblement National in France’s vote for the European Parliament. The deeply unpopular and weakened president gambled that the far right would not repeat that success when the fate of the country itself was at stake.
But Macron’s plan backfired. He is now accused, even by members of his own camp, of opening a door for the National Rally by calling voters back to the polls, especially when so many are angry about inflation, the cost of living, immigration and at Macron himself.
If the National Rally can form a government, it has pledged to dismantle many of Macron’s key domestic and foreign policies, including his pension reform that raised the retirement age. It also says it will halt French shipments of long-range missiles to Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Opponents of Rassemblement National fear for civil liberties if the party takes power. The party plans to expand police powers and curtail the rights of French dual nationals to work in some defense, security and nuclear industry jobs. Macron himself has warned that the far right could put France on the path to civil war.
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Surk reported from Nice, France. Associated Press journalists Nicolas Garriga and Helena Alves in Paris contributed to this report.
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