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French elections: What happens next as far-right lead in round one?

The results for the first round of France's snap elections show the far-right with a strong lead. But we're only half way there with the second round of voting to come. Here's what happens next.

Published: 30 June 2024 08:08 CEST
Updated: 1 July 2024 08:25 CEST

French elections: What happens next as far-right lead in round one?

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte going to vote on Sunday. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

The final results for round one of voting, released early on Monday morning, showed the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party well in the lead with 33.4 percent of the votes.

They were followed by the alliance of leftist parties, called the Nouveau Front Populaire on 28 percent, Macron’s centrist group Ensemble on 20.8 percent, and the right-wing Les Republicains party on 10.2 percent.

Follow the latest on the results HERE.

Two-rounds of voting

In this election the first and second rounds are just one week apart – voters will return on Sunday, July 7th and make their choice between the second-round candidates. Votes are not carried forward between the rounds, meaning that July 7th is a blank slate.

Not all candidates get to stand in the second round of the vote and some groups may withdraw their candidates meaning the second round could be very different.

The two highest scorers from round one go through, along with any other candidate who gets more than 12.5 percent of the total votes cast.

Usually round two is a two-horse race, but the high turnout at these elections mean that more three or even four-way contests are likely in round two.

First round results

Therefore the results of round one tell us only who will be the candidates for each area in round two – not who has or will win.

That’s still pretty significant though, and naturally round one results give an indication of how people are likely to vote in round two.

Deals

The next few hours and days are likely to be taken up with deals.

Typically in French elections, the defeated parties will urge their supporters to vote for one side or the other in the second round.

That’s usually even more the case when a far-right candidate is still involved – parties will call on voters to Faire un barrage (make a roadblock) against the far right, or invoke Le Front républicain, the term for when parties unite across the political divide to combat the far-right.

After the results were released, Macron called for a “broad” democratic alliance against the far-right.

“Faced with Rassemblement National, the time has come for a broad, clearly democratic and republican alliance for the second round,” he said in a statement.

In a three-way contest, parties also have the option of withdrawing their third-placed candidate in order to avoid splitting the vote – for example in a three-way contest between a centrist, a leftist and a far-right candidate the centrist and leftists may decide between them to withdraw one candidate in order not to split the anti-far right vote.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon and other Nouveau Front Populaire leaders announced that the group would withdraw its candidates in any constituency where they finished third place after round one.

“Our instructions are clear: not one more vote, not one more seat for the RN”, said Mélenchon.

Fellow NFP leader Rahaël Glucksmann said: “We have seven days to avoid a catastrophe for France.”

Voters who find the second-round choices unpalatable have the option of abstaining (which is why turnout will be carefully monitored) or casting a ‘vote blanc‘ – a blank ballot paper – to express their opposition.

Next Sunday

The second round of voting takes place on Sunday, July 7th and – like round one – provisional results will be released at 8pm.

A party needs a minimum of 289 seats to get an overall majority in parliament – any party that gets this number will be able to put forward their candidate for prime minister. If it is either RN or NPF, that prime minister will then enter a cohabitation with President Macron – who remains president whatever the results are.

If no group or party gets 289 seats, then we’re in for messy and protracted negotiations.

The most likely scenarios are either a coalition or some kind of ‘government of national unity’, perhaps headed by a figure from outside politics.

Truthfully, however, no-one really knows since this has never happened since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958. We’re entering uncharted waters . . .

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Ask the experts: How far-right is France's Rassemblement National?

Co-founded by a former member of the SS and led for decades by a man who described the Holocaust as “a detail of history”, few people would dispute that France’s Rassemblement National (formerly Front National) began life as an extremist far-right party.

These days its focus is on winning elections, senior members condemn overt racism and its leader is a smartly-suited young Frenchman with Italian and Algerian roots – but has the party really changed at all?

Rassemblement National’s 2024 policies

One of the reasons that it can be hard to pin down what the party stands for is the vagueness of its policies – its manifesto is short on detail and party leaders frequently change their minds or contradict themselves when journalists ask them to define their exact plans for France.

Follow the latest French election coverage HERE, and listen to the team at The Local discussing the latest developments on the Talking France podcast. Download here or listen on the link below

In their manifesto, lines about putting street harassers on the sex offenders’ register and recognising endometriosis as a chronic health condition appear beside targets to drastically cut immigration, limit welfare payments to foreigners and introduce a ‘national priority’, which would favour of French citizens when it comes to jobs, housing and benefits, ignoring EU rules on the matter.

Mujtaba Rahman, Managing Director for Europe at Eurasia Group, told The Local that to understand the RN, you must “look at the totality of things that they are committed to”.

“You have to look at what they said in 2022, in their EU programme and now in this slightly revised programme (for the 2024 parliamentary elections). The totality of commitments that they are talking about would put them in on a collision course with Emmanuel Macron, the EU, the financial markets and the French Constitution.

“It is very naïve to believe that simply because they want to pursue power they would jettison all of the fundamental elements of their electoral programme.”

According to Rim-Sarah Alouane, a human rights researcher, French legal scholar and PhD candidate at the University of Toulouse, “[Rassemblement National] is still on the extreme right of the political spectrum.”

“The RN has gone through a facelift. They look more social – tackling issues that have traditionally been tackled by the left and mainstream parties.

“But the soul is still rotten. It is still a xenophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-woman party, except you have to read between the lines now.”

According to Professor Emile Chabal, a Reader in history at the University of Edinburgh and author of the book France, “The party’s DNA is still there, but it is less audible. There is still a core interest in immigration.

“When all else fails RN can always say something about immigration or foreigners, but now they are asked about more topics, so they have less time to talk about immigration.

“They’ve more or less coalesced into a protectionist, nationalist, anti-immigration party that is trying to be respectable within the standard parameters of French politics, but they are building on the rich tradition of the French far-right that goes back even to the revolution.”

From Front National to Rassemblement National

What was then Front National began under the leadership of Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former street brawler, who notably called the Nazi gas chambers a “detail history”.

Chabal said: “The Front National began in 1972 as a motley group of activists trying to form a new political movement, and it involved people nostalgic for Pétain [the head of the Nazi collaborationist regime in France during WWII], French Algeria, former sympathisers with the Nazi regime, and to some extent ultra-right Catholics, though they did not have a very prominent role.”

In those days it was largely an activist group rather than a serious political party, but it gradually moved into the party political sphere and its first big milestone was in the 2002 presidential election when – to the shock of the country – Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the second round of the election, before being sounded defeated by Jacques Chirac.

But for many, the pivotal moment was in 2012 when Jean-Marie’s daughter Marine took over the leadership, and shortly afterwards renamed the party Rassemblement National (national rally).

“She is a career politician and she is interested in the conquest of power. She thinks about how to make the party work as an electoral force,” Chabal noted.

Her strategy was known as ‘dédiabolisation’ or detoxifying the image of the party – for example through censuring party candidates who make openly racist statements. She also publicly broke with her father over his anti-Semitic remarks, which she judged an impediment to the party’s electoral success.

In both 2017 and 2022, Le Pen made her way into the second round of the French presidential elections – both times being defeated by Emmanuel Macron.

The RN within French politics

But has the party really changed? Or only changed its presentation and image?

Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff university and researcher of the far right, told The Local: “There are some ways that the RN has changed since 1972. It has moderated in some areas. For example, it no longer defends the death penalty and has become a little more accepting of homosexuality.

“But in terms of its proper ideological core, its position on French identity, that has not changed. Those have been consistent over time. There has been a moderation in how the party communicates, but not in the nature of its ideas.”

Chabal said: “There are three broad tendencies of the far-right in France.

“The first strand is ultra-right conservative Catholicism, which has a very long pedigree going back to French revolution.

“Key tenants include very conservative positions on society and culture, as well as very critical aggressive position toward other religious minorities, such as Muslims and Jews. This tendency had its moment in the sun in 2013 during the anti-gay marriage protests (Manif pour tous).

“It’s noteworthy that the Front National as a party, under Marine Le Pen, did not take part. Individual activists may have, but not the party as a whole. Social issues are almost entirely absent in Le Pen’s policy focus.”

“Then there is the second tendency which you might call ‘the civilisational far right’ – this view sees France, and the west, as declining, but declining because of Arabs, Muslims or the Left. Éric Zemmour has been the vehicle for that.

“The RN represents a third trend in the far right, something you might call ‘protectionist and nationalist’.

“All three strands of the far right share a dislike of foreigners and other religions, but they express that in different ways. In terms of the RN, they are all about protecting French workers.

“That is partly a result of people who vote for the party – the main demographic is people aged 25-40 who live outside of or close to the main cities, who usually have families, who might own a car, who are in employment, but in poorly paid jobs. They resent people who don’t work and they resent immigrants who they see as being on benefits.

“They are looking for social protection, and they are looking for the state to do more… to bring back their local GP practice, to develop the roads, to increase pensions that sort of thing, and they are hostile to environmental policies, because they see those as being very expensive.”

In comparison to Europe

Within Europe, the far right has become a strong force in several countries – so how does RN compare to movements in countries like Italy, Poland, Germany and the UK?

Marta Lorimer, said that when compared to other European far-right parties, “RN shares an ideological core with them in that it is a party that is nativist, authoritarian (in certain respects), and populist as well.”

“Its economic policy is more on a state-focused bent when compared to other more ‘liberal’ (in an economic sense) oriented parties.”

Chabal echoed Lorimer’s analysis: “In France, what is unusual is how the RN is anchored with working people.

“In Poland, the far right is ultra conservative Catholic. The emphasis is on values and issues like reproductive rights. In Italy, Meloni’s party is a bit like Le Pen in terms of trying to appear acceptable, but they have more clearly liberal economic policies,” he said.

As for similarity with the RN and the far-right in the UK, Chabal said “some people who voted for Brexit did so in the hopes that this would help the UK to build and protect its own workers, but if you look at a figure like Nigel Farage, he is more like Zemmour than Le Pen.”

Meanwhile, Rahman said that the Rassemblement National’s place on the political spectrum can be visible simply based on where it sits in the EU parliament.

“The RN group (Identity and Democracy) sits further to the right than Meloni’s ECR party – Meloni’s party is willing to work with Von der Leyen on bits of her agenda. They are willing to be constructive and support elements of Von der Leyen’s mandate.

“But the group where Le Pen sits and where her party may sit – because there is an ongoing discussion about the formation of the new political group that would sit further to the political right – their goal is not to be constructive. Their goal is to hollow out the European Union, to work against the institutions.

“This isn’t a more palatable version of Meloni. It is an ideology that stands in opposition to everything the European Union represents,” Rahman said.

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