The National Rally has a strong lead in the first round of voting in a high-stakes election, putting France on the path to a far-right government for the first time since World War II.
Projections from polling agencies suggest that the National Rally secured a third of the votes during the first round of Sunday’s parliamentary elections. At the opposite end of the political spectrum, early polls suggest that the leftist alliance, Nova Frente Popular, has 29% of the vote. French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists came in third place, with 20.5%.
The parties compete for a total of 577 seats in the National Assembly, the French equivalent of the US House of Representatives.
Macron called early elections a day after his party was crushed by the RN in June’s European parliamentary elections. His decision was widely seen as an attempt to steer voters away from political extremes, but it backfired after a three-week lightning campaign failed to turn the tide.
“The center has imploded,” said Samantha de Bendern, geopolitical consultant for media outlet La Chaine Info, before the election. “Macron miscalculated. He expected the moderate left and the moderate right to come to him. Instead, both adhered to extremes.”
Macron shocked the world when he called early elections without any obligation to do so, triggering an extraordinarily high-stakes vote that could plunge France into political turmoil and leave his legacy in tatters.
Voter turnout on Sunday was nearly 60% hours before polls closed, estimated to be the highest in the first round of parliamentary elections since 1986, according to Ipsos.
What is the next?
While the results of the first round offer a snapshot of overall voter sentiment, the composition of the French National Assembly remains to be seen as parties regroup, form alliances in some constituencies and withdraw from others before the second round in 7 July.
Although the RN will likely win the most votes in the first round, another increase in support will still be needed before July 7 to secure the remaining seats up for grabs.
What is likely to emerge is a hung Parliament, populated by adversaries from opposing parties, creating the possibility of political paralysis and damaging inaction, making it much more difficult to pass new legislation and advance any pending legislation.
If there is no majority, Macron will have the task of nominating a prime minister from the parliamentary group with the most seats in the National Assembly. The prime minister serves as head of government and oversees much of the day-to-day domestic politics, while the president has control over foreign policy.
But the controversial composition of the government could make this a tumultuous process – a candidate for prime minister could risk being ousted through a vote of no confidence if other parties join forces. France could be left without a prime minister as political parties vie for power.
“Either we have no government, we have a technocratic government, or we argue for months about who should be prime minister,” de Bendern said. “One year and one day after the dissolution of Parliament, Macron can call new parliamentary elections, so we will have a year of chaos.”
But the second round of voting is more difficult to predict, as voters who supported marginal parties in the first round could lend their votes to the leading parties.
Who is the extreme right?
The National Rally is the party ready to claim the highest number of votes, which is in line with pre-election polls that showed an increase in support for the far right and left, and a collapse in support for the center.
The party’s standard bearer in these elections is Jordan Bardella, a stylish, media-savvy 28-year-old. A loyal protege of party leader Marine Le Pen, Bardella was elected party president in 2022. (Le Pen is believed to be seeking the French presidency in 2027). With Bardella front and center, the National Rally wrested power from the center during this month’s EU parliamentary elections.
Bardella has pledged to wage a “cultural battle” against Islam, opposed immigration, promoted a “France for the French” platform and supported policies that benefit the working class – a rebuke to some of Macron’s most controversial policies , including pension reform and pension reform. abolish a tax on the richest in France.
The party also gained supporters after Marine Le Pen began to shift it away from its roots as an extreme ethnocentric party, as happened under her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, its founding 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 condemned several times for making anti-Semitic comments and considering the Holocaust a “detail” of history.
Still, some RN members continue to expressing racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic viewsand according to a report published Thursday by the French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, 54% of RN supporters described themselves as racist.
The far right has long been on the brink of power. In 2017, Marine Le Pen came second, behind Macron, for the presidency. Macron won it 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 member of the Socialist Party, says she fears for the future of her country in the face of such extremism, calling Le Pen a huge risk.
“People in France say we have no experience with these people, but we had 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 the Vichy French government during World War II, which collaborated with the Nazis.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
