The far-right and radical-left achieved record scores in the first round of the French parliamentary elections on Sunday 30 June, while President Emmanuel Macron's centre alliance crumbled. A second round of voting will be held on Sunday 7 July.
Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National (RN) has triumphed in the first round of the French parliamentary elections, Le Monde reported citing final results from the French Interior Ministry on Monday morning. The party secured 33.1% of the votes.
This marks the first time since the Second World War that the radical right has emerged victorious from the first round of parliamentary elections. At least 37 RN candidates have already been elected in the first round as they received more than 50% of the vote.
The left-wing alliance, the Nouveau Front Populaire, snatched second place garnering 28% of the votes. In just over 20 constituencies, the leftist candidate will already certainly win. Trailing in third place is Macron's alliance, Ensemble, with a 20% vote share.
The overall turnout rate was 66.7%, the highest in almost four decades.
Democratic gamble
Macron made the surprise decision to dissolve the country's National Assembly and call for a general election following historic gains for the far-right RN in the European elections on 9 June. He described the early parliamentary race as a "much-needed moment of clarification," hoping the public would change their mind and reject the far-right nationally – but his gamble has now backfired.
Three weeks after making the snap decision, the electorate had its say and it did not bring Macron's desired outcome. However, the final results will not become clear until next Sunday, as elections for the 577 seats in France's National Assembly are a two-round process. The second round will take place on 7 July.
In the constituencies where no candidate won outright in the first round, the top two candidates – as well as any candidate with more than 12.5% of the total number of registered voters in that constituency – will go to the second round.
Due to the high turnout, many areas will see three politicians battling for a seat in the National Assembly. The left-wing parties have already announced that they would withdraw their candidate from those areas if they came third in the first round. This would reduce the RN's chances of victory – a tactic which could play to Macron's advantage.
