The French go to the polls on Sunday for the first round of elections. early legislative elections that President Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly called this month, a gamble that has plunging the country into deep uncertainty on its future.
Voters choose their 577 representatives in the National Assembly, the lower and most important house of Parliament, which will determine the future of Mr Macron’s second term.
A new majority of lawmakers opposed to Mr. Macron would force him to appoint a political opponent as prime minister, radically altering France’s domestic politics and muddling its foreign policy. If no clear majority emerges, the country could be headed for months of unrest or political stalemate. Mr. Macron, who has ruled out resigning, cannot call new legislative elections for another year.
France is nationalist and anti-immigration National gathering The party is widely expected to dominate the race. A broad alliance of left-wing parties could come second. Mr. Macron’s centrist Renaissance party and its allies are expected to lose many seats.
Most polling stations will close on Sunday at 6 p.m. local time, or until 8 p.m. in major cities. Nationwide voting forecasts provided by pollsters, based on preliminary results, are expected just after 8 p.m. and are generally reliable. Official results, published by the Ministry of the Interiorwill come throughout the night.
Here’s what to expect.
The vote is taking place in two rounds and turnout is expected to be high.
The 577 French electoral constituencies, one for each seat, cover the mainland, the French overseas territories and French people established abroad. In each constituency, the seat is allocated to the candidate who obtains the most votes.
Any number of candidates can compete in the first round in each district, but there are specific thresholds to reach the second round, which will take place a week later, on July 7.
In most cases, the runoff brings together the top two vote-getters, and whoever wins the most votes in the runoff wins the race. But there are exceptions.
A candidate who obtains more than 50% of the votes in the first round is declared the winner, provided that these votes represent at least a quarter of the registered voters in that constituency. In some constituencies, the second round could put three or even four candidates in the running if they manage to obtain a number of votes equal to at least 12.5% of the registered voters.
Both scenarios have been rare in recent years, but they are more likely if voter abstention is low, as is expected on Sunday. Most polling institutes expect voter turnout to exceed 60% in the first round, up from 47.5% in 2022.
French legislative elections typically take place just weeks after the presidential election and typically favor the party that just won the presidency, making the election less likely to attract voters who feel the outcome is predetermined.
But this time the stakes are much higher.
A rising far right, a strong left alliance and a declining centre are visible.
The goal of each party and its allies is to win enough seats to form a working majority. If none of them do so, France could face months of political turmoil or gridlock.
But if the National Assembly were to fall into the hands of the opposition, Macron would be forced to appoint a prime minister and cabinet from another political party, who would then control domestic policy. Presidents traditionally retain control over foreign policy and defense matters in such scenarios, but the Constitution does not always offer clear guidelines.
The National Rally has a comfortable lead in the election latest pollswith the support of about 36 percent of voters. After decades on the fringes, the anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic far right has never been so close to governing Francewhich would be a surprising development in a country that has been at the heart of the European project. A National Rally prime minister could come into conflict with Mr Macron over issues such as France’s contribution to the European Union budget or support for Ukraine in its liberalisation process. war against Russia.
The alliance of socialists, greens, communists and France Insoumise, a far-left party, came second in the polls, with around 29% of the vote, and believes it has a chance of defeating the extreme right and form his own government. The alliance wants to reverse some of the measures taken by Mr Macron’s government over the past seven years, such as raising the legal retirement age. She also wants to reverse corporate tax cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy to dramatically increase social spending and push through a big increase in the minimum wage.
For Mr Macron’s centrist party and its allies, the battle is tough. Polls put them in third place, with about 20%, and widely predict that they will lose many of the 250 seats they hold. Some of Mr Macron’s political allies are running — the leaders of other centrist parties, some of his own ministers and even the prime minister — and a defeat for any of them would be a major blow.
The results of the first round could give an imperfect idea of the direction the vote is taking.
In 2022, Mr Macron’s centrist coalition and left were neck to neck in the first round votes, ahead of all other parties, with about a quarter of the vote each. A week later, both were still leading the competition, but Mr Macron’s coalition won nearly 250 seatsand the left obtained less than 150.
In other words, while the first round of voting is an indicator of what the final results might be, it is not a perfect predictor.
One way to analyze the first round is to look at national voting trends: what percentage of votes did each party get across the country? It’s a good way to see whether the polls accurately predicted each party’s overall popularity and to see which forces are on the rise heading into the final week of the campaign.
But the nationwide vote percentages obscure the fact that French legislative elections consist, in essence, of 577 separate ballots, and that each seat is not decided until after the second round.
Each party’s prospects depend on how many rounds of voting their candidates participate in: the more they reach, the more likely their party is to come out on top on July 7. The kind of confrontations they will face will also become clearer.
And a lot happens between the two rounds. Voters whose favorite candidate is not selected in the second round will turn to another candidate or stay at home.
Parties will issue voting recommendations at the local or national level to try to influence the outcome. In the past, parties of all stripes often called on their members to vote strategically against the far right, but this tactic failed.
Candidates can decide to withdraw from a three- or four-way race if they fear splitting votes; several left-wing parties have already announced that they would encourage their candidates to do so.
There will also be a new week of campaigning – plenty of time for the gaffes, missteps or twists that could change the course of any race.
