France’s snap legislative election is one of the most consequential in decades for both the country and the rest of Europe, potentially propelling the far-right National Rally (RN) to a parliamentary majority and therefore into government.
The two-round election will take place on 30 June and 7 July. How will it work, what are the stakes and what is the result likely to be?
What’s the story and why does it matter?
Taking almost everyone, including most of his party, by surprise, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called snap legislative elections in the aftermath of his centrist Renaissance party’s crushing defeat by RN, the party of Marine Le Pen, in the European parliamentary elections.
No French president has ever dissolved parliament with his party at barely 15% in the polls, and it seems very likely that RN, which Le Pen has spent years detoxifying and which scored more than 31% in the EU ballot, will boost its tally of deputies.
If RN does well enough to hold an absolute majority in the national assembly, the consequences could be dramatic: Macron would have to nominate an RN prime minister and most of French domestic policy would be run by the far-right party.
How do the elections work?
Parliamentary elections in France are normally held every five years; the next ones were due in 2027, a month or so after the next presidential elections, in which Macron, having served two terms, would not be able to stand.
The 577 deputies (or MPs) in the assembly are elected by universal suffrage using a two-round simple majority system. To win in the first round, a candidate must get more than 50% of ballots cast and the support of at least 25% of registered voters (so turnout matters).
If no candidate achieves that, the two highest scorers plus any other candidate who collected at least 12.5% of total registered voters, advance to a second round of voting seven days later. In that round, the candidate who obtains the most votes is elected.
A handful of MPs are usually elected in the first round. The vast majority of second-round contests are two-candidate races, but depending on turnout, some can involve three or even four candidates, leaving some scope for tactical agreements between parties to withdraw.
The system was designed to make it harder for candidates from parties on the extremes of the political spectrum to be elected. However, the increasing mainstreaming of RN over the past two decades has ensured the current parliament includes 88 RN deputies. (To get an outright majority they would need 290 deputies.)
What are the roles of parliament, government and president?
Under the French constitution, the government “determines and conducts the policy of the nation”, parliament passes laws and can overturn the government, and the head of state is supposedly an arbiter ensuring the “regular functioning of public powers”.
The president, as guarantor of “national independence, territorial integrity and respect for treaties” is in charge of foreign, European and defence policy, while the government – with the backing, or not, of parliament – runs domestic policy.
That means pensions, unemployment benefit, education, tax, immigration and nationality requirements, public employment, law and order, employment legislation all fall, in principle, under parliament’s and the government’s remit.
By convention, and because they do not want to see their government overturned by a no confidence vote or a motion of censure by parliament, presidents invariably appoint a prime minister and cabinet that will have majority support in the lower house.
When president and parliamentary majority are politically aligned, this arrangement functions relatively smoothly. When they are not (known as cohabitation) things are harder. It is difficult to conceive of a stormier cohabitation than Macron and an RN majority.
Who are the contenders and what are their chances?
Macron’s Renaissance group is the largest in parliament with just over 170 MPs. It has a centrist, pro-European, pro-business platform, but its popular support, along with that of the president, has slumped after a string of unpopular reforms. It is polling at 19%.
RN, the biggest single opposition party, has been disciplined since winning the 2022 elections but for all its normalisation remains at core a populist, nationalist, far-right party with plans for a “national preference” for French citizens and billions in unfunded spending. It is polling at 33%.
Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) is a putative left-green alliance between Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), the Socialists (PS), Communists and Greens (EELV). They do not always see eye to eye but have agreed to field one candidate between them in every constituency. If it can keep its act together, polls suggest it could score up to 30%.
Les Républicains (LR), the centre-right party of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, has 68 MPs but is in meltdown after a pledge by its chairman, Éric Ciotti, to form an electoral pact with RN (the parties would either field joint candidates or agree not to stand against one another). Most of the rest of the party strongly disagrees. Polling is at 7%.
What might the outcome be?
The two-round electoral process makes it hard to confidently estimate seat numbers, but experts predict RN could almost treble its tally of deputies, though most likely fall short of an outright majority, while Renaissance’s total could halve.
Such a result would leave Macron facing three years of an even more fractured and hostile parliament, having to cut difficult deals with opposition parties to form a government and pass laws, leading to almost certain legislative deadlock.
That would create big problems for France but might be less damaging than an outright RN majority. An RN-controlled parliament, most likely with the 28-year-old party president, Jordan Bardella, as prime minister, would aim to push through its domestic agenda.
That could include raising public spending, expelling more migrants, halting family reunification, reversing a planned gas price rise, and privatising public TV and radio. Some other plans, including “national preference”, could run into constitutional obstacles.
The ramifications would be European. Although the president would nominally retain control over foreign policy, measures such as aid to Ukraine could be jeopardised because parliament’s backing would be needed to finance any support as part of France’s budget.
