Far-right wins absolute majority in French election runoff

To prevent the National Union (RN) from coming to power, the New Popular Front, formed by left-wing and far-left parties, has joined forces with President Macron’s Renaissance centrists, closing ranks around the candidate most capable of defeating his far-right rival.

But the front against the RN may not be enough to stop the absolute majority of Marine Le Pen and Bardella’s party, for two reasons: firstly, there is no certainty that there will be a shift in votes from the centre to the left; these will be those who prefer the RN candidate to the New Popular Front, which brings together the Greens, the Socialists, the Communists and the far left. Then we have to count on abstention, which is predictably higher, since voters do not identify with any of the competing candidates – only the two candidates who got the most votes and got 12.5% ​​made it to the second round, and if a majority of the 200 withdrawals, in most circles the dispute will be two-sided.

But regardless of the outcome of today’s elections, France risks ending up in a political impasse or in a situation of great instability. If the far right wins, coexistence between Macron and Bardella will be uneasy. If the far right’s victory is not confirmed or they fail to muster the necessary support to form a government, it is also unclear who can lead an executive power on the left that guarantees a stable absolute majority, given the divisions that exist within the parties that make up the Popular Front.

Heroes
Jordan Bardella
The only child of Italian immigrants, he was born in 1995 in a suburb of Paris. His parents separated when he was one and a half years old. A geography student at the Sorbonne, he dropped out of college in his third year to devote himself to politics. The TikTok star was elected president of the RN in 2023, succeeding Marine Le Pen.

Gabriel Attal
The French prime minister was born in 1989 in the Paris area to an upper-class family. He has three sisters and is openly gay. After graduating from the Paris Institute of Political Studies, he joined the PS in 2006. Six years later, in 2012, he joined Macron’s party, Em Marché, now Renacimiento.

Olivier Faure
Married, father of four, first secretary of the PS and face of the New Popular Front in these legislative elections, he was born in August 1968 in La Tronche. The son of a civil servant and a nurse, of Vietnamese origin, he worked in the Ministry of Employment, was deputy director of François Hollande’s office and deputy.

AND
30 thousand police officers
More than 30,000 police officers will take to the streets of major French cities this Sunday to avoid clashes after the election results are known. “We want to ensure that the radical right and radical left do not take advantage of the situation to cause chaos,” said French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

A year without elections
New legislation can only be in a year, says the Constitution. This Sunday’s elections were called by Macron in light of the European election results.