When Emmanuel Macron announced France’s snap election on 9 June, following the surge in support that weekend of Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Rally (RN) party at the European elections, he must have known it was a gamble. The RN has had a surge in support in the country in recent months, while Macron’s centrist alliance lost its parliamentary majority in 2022 and has since been plagued by divisions and disorder. The unexpected elections, Macron announced, could provide a “moment of clarification” for French voters to choose who they wanted to lead. As the exit poll for the first round of voting was announced on Sunday night, it seems that bet has backfired.
Initial projections after polls had closed, according to pollster Ipsos, showed that Le Pen’s RN took first place with 34.2 per cent of the vote. The New Popular Front (NFP), a four-party left-wing alliance led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, came in second with 29.1 per cent, followed by Macron’s allies Ensemble on 21.5 per cent of the vote. Though the final count could shift, particularly given how unusually high the turnout for this vote was, it’s already clear that voters aren’t willing to reward Macron for his gamble.
And voters clearly recognised the importance of this election: turnout by late afternoon was already at 59.39 per cent, making it the highest turnout at this stage since the 1980s. (By contrast, only 39.42 per cent of eligible voters turned out in 2022.) Yet the turnout makes Macron’s miscalculation even more pronounced: not only did he come in a humiliating third, it was a majority of French voters who turned out to put him there.
As a result of the surging turnout, the second round of voting on 7 July will likely include many three-sided runoffs. Qualifying candidates for the second round must have secured at least 12.5 per cent of registered voters; a higher turnout makes a three-way runoff more likely for a greater number of seats. One pollster predicts that as many as 315 out of 577 seats will have three-candidate run-offs based off of the first-round results.