France, cradle of an idea of the Europe of human rights and the Enlightenment, has one week to decide whether to put the Eurosceptic and nationalist extreme right in power, or if it stops its unstoppable rise with a heterogeneous coalition that spans from the left radical to the moderate right. This is the choice that the French face after the resounding victory, in the first round of the legislative elections, of Marine Le Pen’s National Regroupment (RN).
Never before had this Eurosceptic and nationalist party won a legislative election in the country that, along with Germany, has been the driving force of the EU since its foundation. Never before had the Le Pen supporters, relegated for decades to the corner of ideological outcasts, occupied the central place they occupy today in this society.
Yes, parties in Le Pen’s ideological sphere had won elections and governed other parts of Europe and in the United States. But France, where the extreme right has come a long way to normalization since the 1980s, resisted. Not anymore?
Despite its exceptional success in the legislative elections, the RN is far from certain. With more than a third of the votes in the first round, it is the favourite to become the largest parliamentary force after the second round on 7 July. But it is not clear whether it will have enough deputies to appoint a prime minister and form a government.
The first projections for the second round place it a few dozen seats short of the 289 threshold that marks the absolute majority. The alternatives are three: an absolute majority of the RN; a grand alternative coalition of moderates and leftists; or the parliamentary blockade and the threat of misgovernment.
The Left is emerging as the main bloc against the RN after these elections. The parties linked to Macron, which have dominated the National Assembly since 2017, are in third place, losing all the power they have accumulated over the years, and are the biggest losers of the president’s decision.
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This Monday another campaign opens in France, that of the second round, in which the French will face, as President Emmanuel Macron wanted when he called the legislative elections by surprise three weeks ago, a “moment of clarification.” Has the time come to allow this party, which collects millions of votes, election after election, and which has been able to connect and interpret a deep malaise in society, access to the Government? Or will the battered republican front, the alliance to put a cordon sanitaire on the extreme right, be reborn to prevent it again? touch can?
Everything will be decided in the next five days of the campaign, a sprint that will determine whether France makes a turn, and with it Europe. A union of the parties opposed to the RN could curb the ambitions of this formation and prevent Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s right-hand man and his candidate for prime minister, from leading the next French Government.
These elections, unexpectedly called by President Emmanuel Macron and marked by the highest turnout since 1981, close to 70%, have had the effect of an earthquake in France. For the first time, a party with roots in the xenophobic and anti-Semitic far right has won the legislative elections, although under the leadership of Marine Le Pen it has changed its skin and shed its most aggressive edges.
The RN has obtained 34.2% of the votes, according to the Ifop institute’s estimate for the TF1 channel at the close of the polls, almost double its result in the last legislative elections, two years ago. In second place was the left-wing coalition New Popular Front, with 29.1%, three points more than in 2022.
The Macronist Ensemble (Together) candidacy would be far away, in third position, with 21.5%, about three points less than the previous legislative ones. The Republicans, the traditional right-wing party twinned with the Spanish PP, would get 10%.
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* The New Popular Front includes La Francia Insumisa (LFI), Socialist Party (PS), Greens (EELV) and Communists (PCF). In 2022 they participated as the New Environmental and Social Progressive Union (NUPES) and other forces.
In a written statement released at the close of polling stations, Macron called for “a great, clearly democratic and republican union” in the face of the RN. Leaders of the left, from the Eurosceptic and anti-capitalist to the pro-European, called for unity behind the candidates who have the best chance of beating the far right in the second round.
“Democracy has spoken,” declared Le Pen. “Now we need an absolute majority so that in eight days Emmanuel Macron can name Jordan Bardella prime minister.”
The legislative elections in France are actually 577 simultaneous elections in 577 constituencies to elect 577 deputies. The two most voted in the first round are not classified for the second round, as in the presidential elections, but rather the candidates who in the first round exceed 12.5% of the total number of those registered on the electoral roll.
Participation close to 70%
The participation close to 70% implies that there will be dozens of constituencies in which the second round will be contested between three candidates. This is what is known as triangular.
In the first round of the previous legislative elections, participation was 47.5%. So there were only 8 districts with triangular ones. On July 7 there could be almost 300, according to some estimates.
The triangular ones disperse the vote, which can facilitate the election of the RN candidates, who start in the lead. But, if the least voted candidates withdraw to concentrate the vote against the extreme right, Le Pen’s candidates could have a more difficult time achieving an absolute majority.
Hence the significance of Macron’s quick statement, calling for a front against the extreme right. It remains to be seen how this will be realized and who the concept of “democrats and republicans” includes.
Some Macronists have indicated that they would withdraw their candidates if the candidate of the New Popular Front compared to that of the RN was a socialist, environmentalist or even communist. But not if he belonged to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s more radical France Insoumise, dominant in the leftist coalition.
In the next few hours it will be clearer if the so-called Republican front is really resurrected. After the unquestionable electoral success of the ultra party, in any case, French politics has entered a new phase.
Everything has precipitated in a few days. They have been three of the most intense weeks in French politics in recent times, since on the night of June 9, Macron announced by surprise the dissolution of the National Assembly, where the parties that support him were in the majority, and the call for legislative elections. anticipated. The decision, in response to the electoral debacle of the Macronists in the European elections and the victory of the extreme right, precipitated a chain reaction in the parties. The Macronists, bewildered and in many cases irritated with their leader’s decision, launched a desperate campaign, hiding Macron in the posters. The traditional right of Los Republicanos (LR) imploded when its president, Éric Ciotti, left with Le Pen’s RN. Against all odds, the heterogeneous French left achieved an agreement to present single candidates and a common program.
This campaign has opened a new chapter of recomposition of the French partisan landscape, which began in 2017 with the emergence of Macron. From here comes a France with three blocs: a broad nationalist and eurosceptic right; a robust left that at least aspires to be the main opposition force; and a diminished central block. Macronism may have signed his death certificate tonight.
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