France’s political rivals barely had the time to digest the results of the National Rally election success before they had to kickstart a new campaign for the final vote. The anti-immigration party secured one in three votes in the first rounds of the parliamentary elections. They have now set their sights on winning an absolute majority.
The RN leader Jordan Bardella, who hopes to be the next PM of France appealed to voters to make a choice between a left-wing alliance and he called on an existential threat to the French nation and a party of patriots ready to leap into action. PM Gabriel Attal, who may be days from losing his job says that the stakes are clear and to stop the far-right majority.
Emmanuel Macron, who called the election and propelled France into political crisis still has three years as president and has vowed not to resign. But the centrist movement he founded came only third in the first round and now finds itself eclipsed by a left-wing alliance called New Popular Front as well as the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.
Of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, RN needs 289 to form an absolute majority and put through its programme on immigration, law and order and tax cuts. It wants to restrict social welfare to French citizens, abolish the automatic right to French citizenship called “droit du sol” for people who come to France as children and prevent 3.5 million people with dual citizenship from holding sensitive and strategic jobs.
RN and its allies have already confirmed 38 seats, won outright with more than half the local vote in Sunday’s first round. The Popular Front have 32 and the Macron alliance just two an indication of how far the government party fell behind.
Another 501 seats have yet to be decided and the big no three-party blocs have large decisions to make within 24 hours. Candidates who have qualified for Sundays second round for the Marcon camp or the Popular Front now have to decide on July 2, 2024 whether or not to withdraw, to maximise the chances of defeating National Rally. Both the Popular Front and the Macron ensemble camp have pleaded with voters not to vote for the far-right.
But tensions between the two burst out in the open on July 1, 2024, and indication of the high stakes of this election and the intensity of such a brief campaign. Greens leader Marine Tondelier was on the verge of tears during a radio interview when she reacted angrily to Macron minister’s call, not to back the biggest party in the left-wing alliance.
Finance Minister Bruno le Maire had said moments earlier that voters should steer for France Unbowed, whose critics denounce it as extremist as much as they should not vote for Bardella’s party. Tondelier said that she lived in a town held by the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen for ten years and said that the Macron alliance had misunderstood the issue and had chosen cowardice and dishonour.
“Does National Rally have a chance of winning an absolute majority in the National Assembly? The answer is yes. Is France Unbowed in the position of winning an absolute majority, the answer is no.”
