French Far Right Leads First Round of Parliamentary Elections

Source; CFR

The far-right National Rally party surged ahead in the first round of parliamentary elections yesterday to secure around 33 percent of votes, while a left-wing alliance pulled in 28 percent and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists trailed behind at roughly 22 percent. The results triggered an unprecedented hundreds of runoffs slated for this Sunday, which could block Marine Le Pen’s National Rally from forming a government if it does not earn an absolute majority. Macron called the snap elections a referendum on the far right’s influence in France last month, and called yesterday for “a large, clearly democratic and republican rally for the second round.” An absolute National Rally legislative majority would allow the party to name a prime minister while Macron remains president.

Centrist and leftist parties are strategizing ahead of the runoff, with a deadline tomorrow to decide whether candidates will drop out. The far-right surge in France comes as other far-right candidates take up more of the global stage; under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union today. (FT, Le Monde)

Analysis

“Macron’s move is shaping up to be a rather irresponsible gamble that could plunge France into political, social, and economic turmoil, with repercussions across Europe,” CFR Senior Fellow Matthias Matthijs writes in this Expert Brief. “The fact that France could be facing prolonged governmental gridlock is very bad news for the Franco-German engine of European integration, and hence bad for Europe’s future.”

“Portraying a party as so outside a community’s political norms that it can never be allowed near power can backfire. It reinforces its voters’ sense that traditional elites treat them with contempt and neglect—part of what attracts people to protest movements in the first place,” the Financial Times’ Martin Sandbu writes.