Voters stand at a polling station during the second round of legislative elections in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, northern France, on Sunday.
Mohammed Badra/AP
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Mohammed Badra/AP
French voters turned out in numbers not seen in decades to stop the far-right Rally National from taking power in the French parliament. Opinion polls had projected the party to come in first, but initial results showed the party in third place when polling stations closed.
More than two-thirds of eligible voters cast ballots in Sunday’s vote, an increase of more than 20 percentage points from the last parliamentary elections. French President Emmanuel Macron called the snap elections after his National Rally party came in first in the European Parliament elections a month ago. He dissolved Parliament and called for a vote that was widely described, including abroad, as a risky gamble, saying now was the time for “clarification.”
In the days leading up to the election, opinion polls showed that French voters clearly wanted the Rally National to become the largest party, even though its popularity was falling and it was unlikely that it would win an absolute majority. Nevertheless, the party’s de facto leader, Marine Le Pen, intended to endorse her protégé Jordan Bardella as the next prime minister of France. Bardella would be the leader of the first far-right government since World War II.
But in the month between the breakup and Sunday’s vote, a coalition of left-wing parties and Mr. Macron’s own Ensemble movement forged a series of local “hold your nose” pacts in which the candidate most likely to beat the Rally National candidate would get the full support of the other parties. The pacts, called the “Republican Front” after a 1936 pact between communists, socialists and others to keep the far-right out of power, were signed.
French President Emmanuel Macron (right) cast his vote in the second round of legislative elections in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, northern France, on Sunday.
Mohammed Badra/AP
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Apparently it worked again.
It’s unclear what happens next: a German-style “grand coalition” between left-leaning groups and Mr Macron’s party is possible, or a technocratic government to see France through to the summer’s Paris Olympics.
A deadlocked “coexistence” government with Macron as president and the Rally National running the government would almost certainly not happen, weakening France’s position in the European Union, NATO and global financial markets.
