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Five maps to understand the French parliamentary election

From political deadlock to far-right gains, here are the essential maps you need to understand what happened in France's 2022 parliamentary elections.

Published: 20 June 2022 13:21 CEST
Five maps to understand the French parliamentary election
French far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) leader Marine Le Pen poses while campaigning (Photo by Pascal GUYOT / AFP)

Almost two months after Emmanuel Macron won his re-election campaign – the first French president to do so in France in almost twenty years – the French people have voted not to give him an absolute majority in parliament.

Instead, opposition groups like La Nupes (the leftist coalition) and Rassemblement National (the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen) consolidated large blocs in parliament, enough to make the next five years very complicated for Emmanuel Macron.

Here are the maps you need to visualise what happened in France’s parliamentary elections.

The big picture

This map shows an overall picture of which parties won which districts across France.

The president’s centrist coalition, Ensemble (in yellow), has a lot of the country’s west coast of the country to thank for its victories, with regions like Brittany, Pays de la Loire, and Nouvelle Aquitaine providing support for the president’s party. 

Elsewhere the picture is more fragmented with leftist alliance Nupes (in red), far-right Rassemblement National (dark blue) and centre-right Les Républicains (light blue) all picking up seats around the country, although the far right did well all along the Mediterranean coast. 

Macron misery

Nevertheless, the picture for the sitting president is considerably less cheery than it was in 2017.

Though the president’s centrist coalition will still be the largest group in parliament, it has lost 105 deputés (MPs) in the last five years.

A significant portion left the party or resigned from their positions in the early days of Macron’s first term, while a large chunk lost their seats to candidates from the Rassemblement Nationale and Nupes in Sunday’s election.

Health minister Brigitte Bourguignon, maritime minister Justine Benin and environment minister Amélie de Montchalin were among the victims in Sunday, as well as party faithful and current president of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand and former interior minister Christophe Castaner. Ex education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer had been knocked out in the first round.

Left alliance

Four leftist parties – the hard left La France Insoumise (LFI), the centre left Parti Socialiste (PS), the Greens (EELV) and the Communists  (PCF) – came together in this election to form a coalition known as La Nupes (Nouvelle Union populaire, écologique et sociale) and together they won 133 seats, making it the second largest group in the parliament.

In the previous government, the four parties of the left only occupied 60 seats between them, so this represents a significant gain when compared to 2017.

But this doesn’t represent a particular shift to the left – the percentage of people voting for La Nupes in the first round in 2022 was 25.78 percent – only a fraction higher (25.38 percent) than the combined result of the four parties of La Nupes in 2017. However, by forming the pre-election pact the leftist parties agreed not to stand candidates against each other, and therefore turned their vote share into a larger number of seats in parliament. 

This map shows which factions within the leftist coalition won parliamentary seats, and where they were successful. It remains to be seen how well the coalition will be maintained in the coming months, as the parties hold differing perspectives on key issues.

The rise of the far-right

Shocking pollsters and election experts alike, France’s far-right party, Le Rassemblement Nationale (RN), won 89 seats in parliament.

Previously, the party only won eight in 2017. It represents a historic record for the far-right in France, and an encroaching change for France’s traditional political geography, where the south of the country once represented a stronghold for the left.

The RN is now the largest single-party opposition bloc in France’s parliament.

The real winner: abstention

Over half of French people – about 54.77 percent – did not participate in the second round of the parliamentary elections.

Early analysis shows that age and household income played a role in who voted and who did not: only 29 percent of 18-24 year olds and 36 percent of people living in a household with a total income of less than €1,200 per month went to the polls. 

And finally . . . Zemmour

The below map shows the total number of seats gained by extreme right TV pundit-turned politician Eric Zemmour – a big, fat zero.

Zemmour’s Reconquête and his party did not gain a single seat and all its candidates – including Zemmour himself – were knocked out in the first round.

His total vote share was just four percent, falling from seven percent in the presidential elections in April.

Member comments

  1. Plurialism (le pluralisme) is absolutely essential for a prosperous, thriving democracy.

    Pluralism propels the principle that diversity is beneficial to society and that political power should be enjoyed by disparate functional or cultural groups within a society, including religious groups, trade unions, professional organizations, and ethnic minorities.

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POLITICS

Fuel prices to immigration: The key points of Macron’s pledges

French President Emmanuel Macron laid out his some of his priorities for the months to come in an interview on French television on Sunday night.

Published: 25 September 2023 10:39 CEST
Fuel prices to immigration: The key points of Macron's pledges

During an interview with French television channel, TF1, on Sunday night, French President Emmanuel Macron weighed in on several ongoing topics in French society, from immigration to fuel prices via cost of living and plans for the ecological transition.

Here are four key takeaways:

Petrol prices and household subsidies 

In order to counter the rise in fuel prices, Macron told TF1 that he has “no miracle solution”, but that the prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, would meet with fuel distributors this week to “call for fuel to be sold at cost price”. 

The president also said he would request that the government include a new scheme to help low-income households who rely on their vehicles to get to work in the upcoming 2024 budget. The Macron government previously offered a similar subsidy for low-earning households, but this one would be paid ‘per vehicle per year’, rather than simply by the household. 

Le Figaro reported that it would likely be restricted to the first five income brackets, meaning individuals with a “reference income of less than €14,700”. This would involve individuals who earn less than €1,314 net per month, couples with one child who take in less than €3,285 net per month, families with three children earning less than €5,255 net per month.

Macron did not offer an exact timeline for when it would come into existence, but as it would be part of the new 2024 budget, the aid would likely not be available until 2024.

 As for other government plans to help motorists with rising fuel costs, the prime minister previously said the government would pass legislation to allow fuel distributors to sell at a loss, which is normally outlawed in France due to protection for small and independent businesses.

However, large distributors such as Carrefour, Leclerc, Intermarché Système U, Casino and Auchan, all refused the government’s plan and said they would not sell fuel at a loss. This includesTotalEnergies, who controls around a third of French fuel stations and had already agreed to cap petrol per litre to €1.99.

In explaining why fuel prices have been rising, Macron said: “We are paying for our dependence. Since the beginning of 2023, the price per barrel of oil has risen around a third and that’s going to continue (…)The increase for this is not tax-related. It has to do with geopolitics.”

Inflation

Macron said his focus is job creation. The French president has previously touted goals of ‘full employment’, which would include some reforms to the existing structures for unemployment benefits and eligibility.

As for wages, Macron said that during an upcoming conference on employment and benefits – set to take place in early October – the government would “work with sectors that still pay below the legal minimum wage.”

As for wage indexation for all fields, the president said he is not in favour as it would “create an inflationary loop.”

Environment and ecological transition

The president also discussed his plans for ‘ecological transition in France’. Macron is set to reveal a thorough ‘ecological plan’ on Monday night at the Elysée Palace. 

On Sunday, he said that the country is “halfway there”. He said that he wants to institute ‘écologie à la française’ (environmentalism in French-style), which he defined as “neither denying the situation nor curing it, but progressing.”

He promised that the government would invest €40 billion in the ecological transition, and stated that one of his major priorities will be to end coal-use and production in France. 

The president said that by 2027, the country’s two remaining coal-fired plants would be converted for ‘biomass’. 

Macron also specified that the government would not ban gas-fired boilers and furnaces, as it had previously indicated, to avoid leaving rural households “without solutions”. Instead, he said the country would seek to encourage the installation of heat pumps. 

The president also mentioned the possibility of offering a specific subsidy for those looking to purchase electric vehicles. He said this could come into force “between now and the end of the year.” 

As for producing electric vehicles and batteries, Macron said that the government planned to create ‘tens of thousands of new industrial jobs’.

READ MORE: Battery makers turn northern French region into ‘electric valley’

Immigration

On the heels of a visit form Pope Francis to Marseille over the weekend – who called for greater solidarity with migrants – Macron addressed the subject of immigration. 

Quoting the former French prime minister, Michel Rocard, Macron said that France “cannot take in all of the world’s misery.”

As for undocumented workers in short-staffed jobs – like the restaurant industry for example – Macron said that there must be ‘intelligent compromise’. He also said: “we must first try to ensure that it is our compatriots (eg. French nationals) who take these jobs (…) there will be no unconditional right to regularisation”. 

France’s parliament will vote on immigration legislation later this autumn.

READ MORE: LATEST: What’s happening with France’s new immigration law?

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