Left heading for shock victory in French election — first estimates

France on course for a hung parliament after early forecasts put the left ahead of the far right.

By Clea Caulcutt
July 7, 2024

PARIS  —  The leftwing alliance in France is on course to win the most seats in a dramatic parliamentary election, dealing a blow to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen, according to early estimates.

Le Pen’s National Rally came top in the first round a week ago and was aiming to secure the most seats in France’s legislature for the first time in the party’s history. But tactical voting and collaboration between Le Pen’s opponents in an effort to keep her party out of power appeared to have paid off, the first indications from pollsters suggested.

According to early estimates by polling institute IFOP, the leftwing alliance is on course to have between 180 and 215 MPs in the 577-seat parliament. That puts it ahead of Macron’s liberals on 150-180 seats, with the National Rally and its allies forecast to have 120-150 MPs in the new legislature.

The seat projections for the final, second round of the election are based on early estimates and a lot could could change as official results are announced from the vote-counting in the hours ahead.

The forecast result is likely to lead to confusion in the short-term at least, with a parliament fragmented between the leftist alliance, Macron’s center and the far-right.

Frantic political maneuvering over the past few days saw Macron’s team and leaders of parties on the left muster their forces in a national effort to thwart the far right. Hundreds of candidates on the left and center of French politics pulled out of the election to avoid splitting the anti-Le Pen vote.

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Their initial aim was to stop Le Pen’s party winning an outright majority, which seemed a likely outcome a week ago. Instead their efforts may have handed the initiative to the other extreme of French politics, the far-left.

In the minutes after the estimates were announced, the far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon took to the stage in front of his jubilant supporters at a rally in the Northeast of Paris, and demanded Macron appoint a prime minister from his leftwing alliance, known as the New Popular Front. “[We] wrested a result that everyone said was impossible in a wonderful leap of civic spirit … The people have avoided the worst,” said Mélenchon, leader of the France Unbowed party.

“The president has the power and the duty to call the New Popular Front to govern. It is ready.”

As his ecstatic supporters chanted “We won!”, Mélenchon said the New Popular Front would seek to implement its manifesto, including revoking Macron’s controversial pensions reforms and introducing big hikes in the minimum wage.

By contrast, the mood at the National Rally election event in the east of the city was grim. Angry Le Pen supporters booed Mélenchon when his speech was shown on TV screens. When the seat projections were announced, one shouted: “What’s that? Is it a joke?”

Nicolas Camut and Giorgio Leali contributed reporting. This developing story is being updated.

 

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