Participants gather during an election night rally following the first results from the second round of France’s legislative election, at Place de la République in Paris on Sunday.
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EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images
PARIS – After being shocked by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election last month, French voters were in for another surprise when voting ended on Sunday evening: the right-wing National Party (RN) did not get the majority of parliamentary seats that pollsters had predicted. It wasn’t even close.
With voter turnout at the highest rate in more than 40 years, initial projections showed the majority of seats would go to the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing coalition that was formed just days after Macron announced he would hold a legislative election.
“The will of the people must be strictly respected,” left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon told a crowd of hundreds of supporters in northern Paris on Sunday evening. He described the results as a victory for the newly formed coalition and said the results were proof of the total rejection of a far-right government in the country. “Our people have clearly rejected the worst-case scenario,” he said. “Tonight, the National Rally is far from an absolute majority.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder of left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), greets supporters on election night in Paris on Sunday.
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Initial results put the left-wing NFP with the most seats, but short of a majority needed to govern; Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition in second place; and the far-right RN in third. Final results are not expected until Monday morning, but with no party reaching an absolute majority, the country’s future remains uncertain.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced his resignation about an hour after the results came in on Sunday evening, and Macron will be under pressure to appoint someone from the NFP coalition.
The election saw a turnout of 67.1%, the highest in 40 years, pointing to a complete rejection of a far-right government. Even though the RN has achieved its most significant lead in the party’s history, its campaign has been tainted by accusations of racism and anti-Semitism.
French President Emmanuel Macron (right) votes in the second round of the legislative election in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, northern France, on Sunday.
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At the RN electoral base in eastern Paris, supporters watched with shock and disbelief as the initial tallies came on a giant television screen. “I’m extremely disappointed, but democracy has spoken,” Jocelyne Cousin, a 19-year-old RN supporter, told NPR minutes after the first results were announced. “I think people are still afraid of the false image that the RN has worked for years to dispel,” she added. A stack of celebratory champagne bottles was barely touched as the crowd quickly dispersed.
Party leader Marine Le Pen was nowhere to be seen, instead sending her young protégé and party president, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, to deliver a solemn speech acknowledging the party’s disappointing result. “Unfortunately, tonight, dishonest alliances have deprived the French people of a policy of reform,” he said, adding that the party’s fight for power was far from over. “More than ever, the National Rally symbolizes the only alternative and will stand with the French people. We do not want power for power’s sake, but to give it back to the French people.”
