Four lessons from France’s snap elections

A new week of hectic campaigning begins in France on Monday, a day after the far-right Rassemblement National party dominated the first round of parliamentary elections. The party attracted an unusually large number of voters and dealt President Emmanuel Macron a hard blow.

Voters are asked to choose their representatives in the 577-seat National Assembly, the country’s lower and more prominent parliament. They will return to the polls on July 7 for a second round of voting.

If a new majority of lawmakers is ushered in against Mr. Macron, he will be forced to appoint a political opponent as prime minister, drastically changing France’s domestic politics and clouding its foreign policy. That will be especially true if he is forced to govern alongside Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old leader of Rassemblement National.

If a clear majority does not emerge, the country could be headed for months of political deadlock or unrest. Mr Macron, who has ruled out resigning, cannot call new parliamentary elections for another year.

On Sunday, as predictions from the first round of voting came in, the nationalist, anti-immigrant National Rally party was leading the national legislative election for the first time in its history, with about 34 percent of the vote. The New Popular Front, a broad alliance of left-wing parties, took about 29 percent; Macron’s centrist Renaissance Party and its allies won about 22 percent; and mainstream conservatives took only about 10 percent.

Here are four lessons from the first round to help understand the election so far.

Voters went to the polls in unusually large numbers.

Legislative elections in France are usually held just weeks after presidential elections and tend to favor the party that wins the presidency. This makes parliamentary votes less likely to attract voters, many of whom feel that the outcome is predetermined.

But this vote — an early election unexpectedly called by Mr. Macron was deregistered — was different. The participation rate on Sunday was over 65 percent, much higher than the 47.5 percent recorded in the first round of the last parliamentary elections in 2022.

The jump reflected intense interest in a high-stakes race and voters’ belief that their ballot could fundamentally change the course of Macron’s presidency.

Especially the final results are difficult to predict.

For an absolute majority a party needs 289 seats. France’s main polls have published cautious forecasts showing that Rassemblement National could win between 240 and 310 seats in the next round of voting.

According to them, the New Popular Front alliance could win between 150 and 200 seats, while Macron’s Renaissance party and its allies could win between 70 and 120.

But using the results of the first round to predict the outcome of the second round has always been tricky because of the nature of the French electoral system. The legislative elections are essentially made up of 577 separate races.

Under certain conditions, a candidate who gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round wins outright. On Sunday, pollsters predicted that at least 60 candidates had been directly elected in this way.

But most seats will only be decided after a second round between the two biggest vote-getters.

Pollsters have predicted that the National Rally and its allies won at least 390 elections, the New Popular Front at least 370, and Macron’s centrist coalition won at least 290.

A lot can happen between the two rounds.

To complicate matters further, runoffs in some districts could include three or even four candidates if they receive enough votes. Normally that is rare. But that wasn’t the case on Sunday, due to the jump in participation.

In 2022, there were only eight three-way races. This time, pollsters predicted there would be more than 200.

Many parties – especially the left – said they would withdraw a third-place candidate to prevent the far right from winning. But some confusion remained Sunday evening.

For example, some of Macron’s allies suggested that his party or its allies should not withdraw a candidate in cases where doing so would help a candidate from the far-left France Unbowed party. has been accused of anti-Semitism. Others said the far right had to be stopped at all costs.

A far-right government, or stalemate, could be next.

Two outcomes seem likely.

Only the National Rally seems capable of winning enough seats for an absolute majority. If it succeeds, Mr. Macron will have no choice but to appoint Mr. Bardella as prime minister. He would then form a cabinet and control domestic policy.

Traditionally, presidents retain control over foreign policy and defense matters in such scenarios, but the Constitution does not always provide clear guidance.

That would produce an anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic far-right party governing a country central to the European project. Mr. Bardella could clash with Mr. Macron over issues such as France’s contribution to the European Union budget or its support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Several thousand demonstrators, mainly left-wing, gathered in central Paris on Sunday evening to protest the National Rally.

If the National Assembly fails to win an absolute majority — Mr Bardella has said he would not govern without an absolute majority — Mr Macron could face an unruly lower house, with two large blocs on the right and the left turning against him. His greatly reduced centrist coalition, wedged between the extremes, would be reduced to relative powerlessness.

The government has already announced it is suspending plans to tighten unemployment benefit rules that have angered unions. Gabriel Attal, Macron’s prime minister, acknowledged in a speech that his party would soon have less influence.

“The stakes for this second round are to deprive the far right of an absolute majority,” he said. His party’s goal, he said, is to have “sufficient weight” to work with other parties.

It remains unclear who Mr Macron could appoint as prime minister in the event of a hung parliament.

The president could try to build a coalition, but France, unlike Germany, is not used to that. The country is also not used to the idea of ​​a transitional government taking over the day-to-day management of the country until there is a political breakthrough, as happened in Belgium.

The extreme right has made its way into all levels of society.

The Rassemblement National’s victory was another sign that the party’s years-long journey from the fringes of French politics to the gilded halls of the French Republic is nearing completion. It almost doubled its share of the vote compared to 2022, when it received 18.68 percent of the vote in the first round of the parliamentary elections.

A study A report released on Sunday showed how much the party has expanded its voter base.

The polling institute Ipsos’ survey, conducted before the election among a representative sample of 10,000 registered voters, found that the National Rally electorate had “grown and diversified.”

The party still does best among the working class, the polling station said an analysisand noted that it received 57 percent of the working-class vote.

But its electoral base has become “significantly broader” beyond these categories, Ipsos said, noting that the party had improved its scores by 15 to 20 percentage points among retirees, women, people under 35, higher-income voters and residents of big cities .

“Ultimately, the Rassemblement National vote has spread,” the polling house said, “creating a more homogeneous electorate than before, and one that is well in tune with the French population as a whole.”

Segolene Le Stradic contributed reporting from Hénin-Beaumont, France.