06/30/2024 – 13:30
French voters turned out en masse to vote on Sunday in the first round of an early parliamentary election that could usher in the country’s first far-right government since World War II, a potential sea change at the heart of the European Union.
President Emmanuel Macron surprised the country by calling the vote after his centrist alliance was crushed in this month’s European elections by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN). His eurosceptic, anti-immigration party had dismal polls for a long time, but is now closer to power than ever.
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Polls opened at 6:00 a.m. and will close at 4:00 p.m. local time in cities and towns, and close at 6:00 p.m. in larger cities, when the first exit polls of the night and seat projections for the decisive second round a week later are expected.
Turnout was high, highlighting how France’s political crisis has energized the electorate. By midday, turnout was 25.9%, compared with 18.43% two years ago — the highest comparable turnout since the 1981 legislative vote, said Ipsos France research director Mathieu Gallard.
France’s electoral system can make it difficult to estimate the precise distribution of seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, and the final result will not be known until the end of the second round of voting on July 7.
“We will win an absolute majority,” Le Pen said in a newspaper interview on Wednesday, predicting that her protege, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, would be prime minister.
She sought to detox a party known for racism and anti-Semitism, a tactic that worked amid voter anger at Macron, the high cost of living and growing concerns about immigration.
In Hénin-Beaumont, a town in Le Pen’s constituency in northern France where she could be reelected in the first round, Denis Ledieu, 67, said people were suffering because of the region’s long-term deindustrialization.
“So if (RN) promises them things, why not? They want to try it, I guess,” he said.
In Garches, a small town near Paris, a woman shouted “It’s shameful, it’s shameful” when Bardella arrived to vote.
“They even invited the leftists,” he said.
On the other side of Paris, in the city of Meaux, Mylène Diop, 51, said she voted for the New Popular Front, a hastily assembled left-wing coalition that came second in the polls. She said this was “the most important election” of her life.
“RN is at the gates of power and you see the aggressiveness of people and the racist discourse that was unleashed,” she said.
If the RN wins an absolute majority, French diplomacy could enter a period of unprecedented turmoil: with Macron — who has said he will remain president until the end of his term in 2027 — and Bardella vying for the right to speak for France.
France has had three periods of “cohabitation” — when the president and government are from opposing political camps — in its post-war history, but none with such radically divergent worldviews competing at the top of the state.
Bardella says he would challenge Macron on global issues. France could go from a pillar of the EU to a thorn, demanding a discount on its contribution to the EU budget, clashing with Brussels over European Commission jobs and reversing Macron’s calls for greater EU unity in relation to defense.
A clear victory for the RN would also raise uncertainty about France’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war. Le Pen has a history of pro-Russian sentiment, and while the party now says it would help Ukraine defend itself against Russian invaders, it has also drawn the line, such as refusing to supply long-range missiles.
‘Divided vote favors RN’
Opinion polls suggest the RN has a comfortable lead of 33% to 36% of the popular vote, with the New Popular Front in second place on 28% to 31% and Macron’s centrist alliance in third on 20% to 23%.
The New Popular Front includes a wide range of parties, from the moderate center-left to the far-left, Eurosceptic and anti-NATO France Unbowed party, led by one of Macron’s most vocal opponents, Jean-Luc Melenchon.
It’s difficult to predict how poll numbers will translate into seats in the National Assembly because of the way the election works, said Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science at the University of Nice and the Ecole Polytechnique.
Candidates can be elected in the first round if they receive an absolute majority of the votes in their electoral district, but this is rare. Most electoral districts will require a second round involving all candidates who received votes from at least 12.5% of registered voters in the first round. The first-place finisher wins.
“If the level of participation is very high, there could be a third or fourth party that enters the race. So of course there is a risk of a split vote and we know that the split vote favors the National Rally,” Martigny said.
For decades, as the RN gained popularity, voters and parties joined forces to prevent it from gaining power, but that may not be true this time.
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