What happens after the victory of the right?

The votes are still being counted in France late on Sunday evening. But one thing is already clear: the president’s calculations have not worked out. In the first round of the new parliamentary elections that Emmanuel Macron called after his party’s debacle in the European elections on June 9, the right-wing Rassemblement National (RN) has won by a clear margin, according to projections.

The party led by parliamentary group leader Marine Le Pen and party leader Jordan Bardella received 33.2 percent of the vote. The coalition of the Left and the Greens came in second with 28.1 percent. Ensemble, President Macron’s group, came in third with 21 percent.

The high voter turnout is a positive factor. According to forecasts, it was between 65.8 and 67 percent. The last time it was higher was in 1988, when François Mitterrand called for new elections and 78.5 percent of French people voted. In the last parliamentary election in 2022, it only reached 47.5 percent in the first round and 46.2 percent in the second round.

“The French have recognised the seriousness of the situation and have gone to vote,” said Sébastien Maillard, political scientist at the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris, to the Tagesspiegel. The high voter turnout also legitimises the RN. “In the past it was often said that the right only did well because many citizens did not vote. That can no longer be said after this election,” emphasises Maillard.

“One might have thought that the higher turnout was due to part of the electorate rebelling at the threat of a RN victory,” says Mathias Bernard, professor of contemporary political history and president of the University of Clermont Auvergne. “But it seems that the RN benefited the most from the turnout,” he explains. This gives their victory additional legitimacy.

The second round of voting

The second round of voting next Sunday will be decisive. Only then will it be clear how the seats will be distributed and the majority in the next parliament will look. In the first round, candidates can only secure a seat if they win with an absolute majority. In the second round, a simple majority is sufficient.

A victory in the first round is usually only possible for a fraction of the 577 seats up for grabs in the French National Assembly. This time, however, it looks as though between 65 and 85 MPs will already be chosen. At the same time, there will now be 285 to 315 runoffs between three candidates in the second round, the Ipsos Institute announced in Paris on Sunday.

The outcome will depend heavily on how many candidates withdraw before the second round, for example to prevent an RN candidate from winning. “This will be a political surgical operation in many constituencies,” says Maillard.

Union against the right

President Macron called for a broad alliance. It is necessary to “form a broad, democratic and republican alliance for the second round of voting,” Macron said on Sunday, according to the Élysée. The high voter turnout in the first round testifies to the “importance of this election for all our compatriots and the will to clarify the political situation,” the president stressed. “Your democratic choice obliges us,” he added.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced late Sunday evening that around 60 candidates from the government camp would withdraw in the second round. This is intended to prevent the victory of right-wing populist candidates. “Not a single vote should go to the Rassemblement National,” he stressed.

Nevertheless, the experts agree that it is by no means impossible that the RN will achieve an absolute majority in the second round of voting. “At this point, everything is still open,” explains Maillard. “The pendulum can swing in any direction.”

What happens next?

Arnaud Mercier, a professor at the Panthéon-Assas University in Paris, sees two scenarios for France: “Either there is an absolute majority for the Rassemblement National or an ungovernable parliament.” Both are bad prospects for the country. The left has mobilized its full potential, Mercier explains in an interview with the Tagesspiegel. But that is not enough. “France has a politically and sociologically conservative majority.”

“In the future, France will be governed less by a presidential regime,” says Maillard. There may be a coalition between President Macron’s party and its partners, as well as the Socialists or Republicans. “Macron’s alliance has not been completely dismantled,” says the political scientist. But it is clear that Macron will have to be much more willing to make political compromises in the future. The experts agree that the election has shown one thing above all: how deeply divided France is.

“The political center has weakened in favor of the left-wing alliance and the far right and their allies,” explains Mustapha El Miri, a sociologist and migration researcher at the University of Aix-en-Provence. “The French want radical changes in one political direction or another. That is the state of France’s nerves after seven years of Macron,” explains El Miri.