The Far right Rassemblement National (RN) party has won the first round of France’s snap parliamentary elections, according to first exit polls released immediately after polling booths closed.
Per a poll released by Ipsos-Talan, RN has taken 34% of the votes, with the left wing New Popular Front (NPF) alliance trailing behind with 28.1% and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble bloc coming in third with 20.3% of votes cast.
The French are voting for the 577 members of the country’s general assembly, or parliament. A second round of voting will take place on July 7 in the many seats where there is no clear majority, with the winner then being the candidate with the most votes.
Although the RN now looks set to have the largest number seats in parliament, on the basis of the first round of voting, it is not yet on course for an absolute majority.
Voting stations opened at 6am local time and were due to close 6pm in smaller towns and 8pm in the big cities.
Macron called the snap election on June 9 in response to hefty gains by RN in European elections, in which 373 million citizens from 27 countries belonging to the European Union bloc voted on its 720-seat European parliament.
The French turnout for that poll was less than 50% of the electorate but Macron said the result posed “a danger” to France.
The president said he could not act as if nothing had happened and for that reason he was putting the ball back in the court of the French people with a general election.
Macron unleashed one of the most decisive elections in France since WW2, pitting an anti-immigrant, law and justice right wing bloc led by RN against a hastily assembled left-wing alliance consisting of the La France Insoumise, the Socialist Party, Les Écologistes, the French Communist Party, Génération.s, and Place Publique parties.
The Ensemble bloc, gathers Macron’s Renaissance as well as the Democratic Movement (MoDem), Horizons, En commun, and the Progressive Federation.
Regardless of which bloc wins the second round, Macron has vowed that he will stay in place as president until the end of this current mandate in May 2027, although it is not clear how much power he will wield without a majority in parliament.
At 5pm local time, the Ministry of the Interior announced participation rate of 59.39%, 20 percentage points higher than the first round of parliamentary elections in 2022.
Polling groups suggesting this would give an eventual rate of between 67.5% to 69.7%, which would be one of the highest turnouts in recent French election history.
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