French President Emmanuel Macron looks on after delivering a speech to the Nexus Institute at the Amare Theater in The Hague on April 11, 2023, as part of a state visit to the Netherlands.
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The first round of France's snap parliamentary elections saw a surge in votes for the anti-immigration Rassemblement National party, while President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance came in third.
Early polling data from national broadcaster France 2 shows that National Rally (RN) won 34% of the vote, while the left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP) received 28.1%. Macron's centrist Together bloc won 20.3%, according to initial projections, which are based on samples of actual results from polling stations that closed earlier in the afternoon.
Polling stations in major cities close later. A clearer picture of the results should appear after 10pm local time.
Candidates are elected in the first round only if they receive an absolute majority of the vote and more than 25% of the registered local electorate's support. If no candidate meets this standard, a second round of voting is held, with the top two candidates being named, as well as any other candidates who have received more than 12.5% of the registered voters' support. The candidate who receives the most votes then wins the seat.
The second round of voting on July 7 is recommended, according to Antonio Barroso, Deputy Director of Research at Teneo.
“First-round wins tend to say little about the overall results (other than a surprisingly high number of wins scored by a specific party). Therefore, in addition to the overall percentage of votes for each party, the most important thing to keep an eye on on Sunday night is how many candidates from each party will make it to the second round,” he said in a note on Wednesday.
“If Together, as expected, does poorly in the first round, there will be numerous races between the NFP and the RN.”
Before the first round of voting, French polls had indicated that the far-right Rassemblement National party would win around 35% of the vote in the election, followed by the left-wing NFP alliance and then a coalition of pro-Macron parties in third place.
Rassemblement National is expected to significantly increase the number of seats in the French parliament, the National Assembly, to 577 seats, from the current 89 seats.
Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally group in the National Assembly, joins Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally (Rassemblement National), during the last meeting before the upcoming European Parliament elections on June 9, held at Le Dôme de Paris – Palais des Sports, on June 2, 2024.
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Nevertheless, Sunday's forecasts suggest that no party will have won an outright majority of at least 289 seats after a first round of voting, pointing to a hung parliament and a period of political and economic uncertainty after the votes.
French President Emmanuel Macron will remain in office until 2027 regardless of the outcome of the vote, but he could come under pressure to choose a new prime minister from the National Rally (even if the party fails to win an outright majority in the final vote), with the most likely candidate being the 28-year-old president of RN, Jordan Bardella.
That new prime minister would have an important voice in France's domestic and economic policy, while Macron would remain responsible for foreign policy and defense. Either way, a so-called “cohabitation” could trouble the government, causing some concern among economists about how the vote could affect the eurozone's second-largest economy.
French President Emmanuel Macron waits for guests for a conference in support of Ukraine with European leaders and government representatives on February 26, 2024 in Paris, France.
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Macron shocked the European political establishment when he called for a snap vote earlier in June after his Renaissance party was defeated by National Rally in the European Parliament elections.
Political analysts said Macron's move was an extreme gamble, with the president betting that French citizens would fear and ultimately reject the prospect of a far-right government. Instead, he appears to have encouraged his political rivals.
— CNBC's Charlotte Reed contributed to this article
