French Far Right Wins Big in First Round of Voting, Polls Suggest
The New York Times
A surprise decision by President Emmanuel Macron to hold a snap election appears to have backfired badly, giving the National Rally a decisive victory, early projections showed.
The National Rally party on Sunday won a crushing victory in the first round of voting for the French National Assembly, according to early projections, bringing its long-taboo brand of nationalist and anti-immigrant politics to the threshold of power for the first time.
Pollster projections, which are normally reliable and are based on preliminary results, suggested that the party would take about 34 percent of the vote, far ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party and its allies, which took about 22 percent to end in third place.
A coalition of left-wing parties, called the New Popular Front and ranging from the moderate socialists to the far-left France Unbowed, won about 29 percent of the vote boosted by strong support among young people, according to the projections.
Turnout was high at about 67 percent, compared to 47.5 percent in the first round of the last parliamentary election in 2022, reflecting the importance accorded by voters to the snap election. To many it seemed that no less than the future of France was on the line with a far-right party long considered unelectable to high office because of its extreme views surging.
The two-round election will be completed with a runoff on July 7 between the leading parties in each constituency.
The result of voting Sunday does not provide a reliable projection of the number of parliamentary seats each party will secure. But the National Rally now looks very likely to be comfortably the largest force in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament where most power resides, although not necessarily with an absolute majority.
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