Supporters of the French National Rally in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, on June 30, 2024.
Francois Lo Presti | Afp | Getty Images
French voters are heading to the polls on Sunday for the second and final round of voting in a snap parliamentary election.
After an initial ballot suggested the far-right National Rally (RN) group would become the biggest party in France’s National Assembly, parties on the center-right and left have joined forces to try to block RN’s advance.
Both President Emmanuel Macron’s “Together” (Ensemble) alliance and the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) have called on voters to reject the party in the second round, and have withdrawn candidates in many constituencies where another candidate was better placed to beat the RN.
By offering voters a starker choice and fewer candidates, RN’s opponents hope that the electorate will opt for the non-RN candidate.
Analysts predict that National Rally — the nationalist, anti-immigrant and euroskeptic party led by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella and party figurehead Marine Le Pen — is now less likely to be able to achieve an absolute majority (of 289 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly) but is still likely to gather the most votes.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella at the final rally before the June 9 European Parliament election, held at Le Dôme de Paris – Palais des Sports, on June 2, 2024.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
The so-called “republican front” strategy being pushed by pro-Macron and left-wing parties has the primary aim of making it substantially more difficult for the RN to obtain an absolute majority.
Still, it’s unclear how voters will react to a) being told who to vote for by the political establishment; b) being asked to vote for party candidates they might instinctively oppose; and c) to mixed messages from political leaders who are now telling them to vote for rival candidates they were disparaging just a few days ago in the campaign race.
“Several senior figures from the pro-Macron camp have provided different suggestions on what their voters should do,” Antonio Barroso, deputy director of Research at consultancy Teneo, said in a note Wednesday.
“For instance, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said voters should vote neither for the RN nor candidates from the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party. At the same time, current Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has called for everyone to vote against the RN.”
An opinion poll published by Ifop on July 3 suggested voters might tend toward the centrist pro-Macron or leftwing candidate rather than the RN candidate if that was the choice they were presented with on the ballot paper. If the choice was between a far-left and far-right candidate, however, the picture was more nuanced, showing a split vote.
Teneo’s Barroso also sounded a note of caution that the poll data related to “attitudes at the national level, ignoring the local dynamics in each constituency.”
What could happen
The first poll to be published after the…
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