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Louise Thomas
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France’s far-right National Rally has failed to become the largest party at parliamentary elections, according to shock exit poll results, which forecast the left-wing New Popular Front coalition is in pole position.
In what would be a bitter blow for Marine Le Pen, an exit poll by Ipsos suggested the NFP coalition will win between 172 and 192 seats, with the Emmanuel Macron-backing Ensemble group taking second place and Ms Le Pen’s party in third place when the results are confirmed on Monday morning.
Following the exit polls, prime minister Gabriel Attal said he would offer his resignation.
Mr Macron took even his own allies by surprise in calling the snap election last month, after the anti-immigration National Rally made huge gains in European elections.
The president gambled that French voters would block the far right as they have in the past.
But the National Rally instead won a larger share than ever in the first round of voting on 30 June.
More than 200 candidates from the Macron-backing Ensemble alliance and left-wing New Popular Front stepped down in seats otherwise facing a three-way battle, in a so-called “republican front” against the far right.
Poll promises of New Popular Front alliance
The leftist New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, which wants to cap prices of essential goods like fuel and food, raise the minimum wage to a net €1,600 ($1,732) per month, hike wages for public sector workers and impose a wealth tax, immediately said it wanted to govern.
“The will of the people must be strictly respected ... the president must invite the New Popular Front to govern,” said hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon.
The eurosceptic National Rally (RN) has worked under Marine Le Pen to shed a historic reputation for racism and antisemitism but many in French society still view its France-first stance and surging popularity with alarm.
There were hugs, screams of joy and tears of relief at the left’s gathering in Paris when the voting projections were announced.
Republique square in central Paris filled with crowds and a party atmosphere, with leftwing supporters playing drums, lighting flares, and chanting “We’ve won! We’ve won!”
I’m relieved. As a French-Moroccan, a doctor, an ecologist activist, what the far right was proposing to do as a government was craziness.
The awkward leftist alliance, which the hard left, Greens and Socialists hastily put together before the vote, was far from having an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-seat assembly.
Official results were trickling in, with the results from most, if not all, constituencies likely in this morning.
Pollsters see leftist alliance first with up to 198 seats
France faced potential political deadlock after elections yesterday threw up a hung parliament, with a leftist alliance unexpectedly taking the top spot but no group winning a majority.
Voters delivered a major setback for Marine Le Pen’s nationalist, eurosceptic National Rally (RN), which opinion polls had predicted would win the second-round ballot but ended up in the third spot, according to pollsters’ projections.
The results were also a blow for centrist president Emmanuel Macron, who called the snap election to clarify the political landscape after his ticket took a battering at the hands of the RN in European Parliament elections last month.
He ended up with a hugely fragmented parliament, in what is set to weaken France’s role in the European Union and elsewhere abroad and make it hard for anyone to push through a domestic agenda.
The election will leave parliament divided in three big groups - the left, centrists, and the far right - with hugely different platforms and no tradition at all of working together.
Hung parliament sees France heading into unknown territory
A hung parliament is unknown territory for modern France.
Unlike other countries in Europe that are more accustomed to coalition governments, France doesn’t have a tradition of politicians from rival political camps coming together to form a majority. France is also more centralised than many other European countries, with many more decisions made in Paris.
The president was hoping that with France’s fate in their hands, voters might shift from the far right and left and return to mainstream parties closer to the centre – where Emmanuel Macron found much of the support that won him the presidency in 2017 and again in 2022.
But rather than rally behind him, millions of voters seized on his surprise decision as an opportunity to vent their anger.
Watch: Celebrations in Paris as far-right projected to come third in exit poll
Bardella accuses Macron of ‘trying to paralyse our institutions'
Here is more from National Rally leader Jordan Bardella’s speech after his distant hopes of becoming prime minister became even more so with Sunday’s exit poll projections:
“I say tonight with gravity that depriving millions of French people of the possibility of seeing their ideas brought to power will never be a viable destiny for France.
“Tonight, by deliberately trying to paralyse our institutions, Emmanuel Macron has not simply pushed the country towards uncertainty and instability, he has deprived the French people of any response to their day-to-day difficulties for many months to come.
“In the midst of a purchasing power crisis, with insecurity and disorder hitting the country hard, France is deprived of a majority, of a government to act, and therefore of a clear course to turn France around.”
French newspaper runs front page of Bardella titled: ‘The slap'
Business newspaper Les Echos has run a front page showing a grim-faced Jordan Bardella with the headline “la claque” – which translates to “the slap”.
Spain’s PM hails ‘rejection of extreme right’ in France and UK
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez has hailed what he described as “the rejection of the extreme right” in both France and Britain.
He wrote on X/Twitter: “This week, two of the largest countries in Europe have chosen the same path that Spain chose a year ago: rejection of the extreme right and a decisive commitment to a social left that addresses people’s problems with serious and brave policies.
“The United Kingdom and France have said YES to progress and social advancement and NO to the regression in rights and freedoms. There is no agreement or government with the extreme right.”
Pollster points to far right’s own shortcomings over disappointing election result
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella attributed their National Rally party’s setback to what Bardella termed the “disgraceful alliance” of leftists, who he said had caricatured the party and disrespected its voters.
But Ipsos pollster Brice Teinturier pointed to the party’s own shortcomings, including revelations before the run-off that several of its candidates had expressed xenophobic views, raising questions over whether the party had really ditched its more toxic past.
“What happened is also that RN candidates themselves showed in this campaign that they either were not ready or had in their ranks candidates that are antisemitic, xenophobic or homophobic,” Mr Teinturier told France 2 television.
What could happen next?
France’s constitution states that president Emmanuel Macron will decide who to ask to form a government.
But whoever he picks faces a confidence vote in the National Assembly, which will convene for 15 days from 18 July – meaning Mr Macron needs to name someone acceptable to a majority of parliamentarians.
The president will likely be hoping to peel off Socialists and Greens from the leftist alliance, isolating Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI), to form a centre-left coalition with his own bloc.
However, there was no sign of an imminent break-up of the New Popular Front at this stage.
Another possibility is a government of technocrats that would manage day-to-day affairs but not oversee structural changes. But it is not clear that the left-wing bloc would support this scenario, which would still require the backing of parliament.
Which notable results have been declared so far?
Outgoing prime minister Gabriel Attal has retained his National Assembly seat in Hauts-de-Seine, according to results published by France’s interior ministry.
Under the banner of the New Popular Front, former Socialist president Francois Hollande also defeated his National Rally opponent by 43 per cent of the vote to 31 per cent, despite the Macron-backed Republican candidate refusing to withdraw in the second round of voting.
Aurelien Rousseau, a former Macron-allied health minister who resigned recently in protest against the controversial far right-backed immigration bill, was also elected under the New Popular Front banner.
Meanwhile, former health minister Olivier Veran – who held the prominent post during the Covid pandemic – was defeated by the leftist candidate in Isere.
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2024-07-08 03:00:00Z
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