France's far-right National Rally made historic gains in the first round of snap elections on Sunday. But their progress is greater in small towns and rural areas than in big cities. RFI looks at how the map of France stands as the three leading parties prepare to battle it out in next Sunday's runoff.
The party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella topped the poll with 33.15 percent of the votes cast, ahead of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance on 28.14 percent, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition on 20.76 percent.
RN and its allies obtained around 9.3 million votes – more than double that of the previous legislative elections in 2022.
It qualified for the second round in 455 of France’s 577 constituencies and came out on top in 297 of them.
Compared to 2022, the RN increased its share of the vote in all constituencies with the exception of the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, where it won just 4.6 percent of the vote.
Campaigning on a promise to boost purchasing power by cutting VAT on fuel and some essential items, RN performed strongest in the northern Haut-de-France region – a depressed former industrial region that used to vote Communist or Socialist but has swung to the far right over the past decade.
Thirty-nine RN candidates won enough votes (more than 50 percent) in the first round to secure their seat directly, and 17 of those were in that northern rust belt.
They included Marine le Pen, re-elected with 58.04 percent in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont in a former coal-mining region, and RN vice-president Sebastien Chenu.
Communist Party leader, Fabien Roussel, running with the NFP list, lost his seat to an RN candidate in a constituency that had been a Communist stronghold for over 60 years.
Biggest gains in southeast
RN made its biggest strides in the southeastern Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur region, which includes the cities of Marseille and Nice, as well as seaside resorts of Cannes and Saint-Tropez.
The region has historically been a bastion for the National Front – as the RN was called until 2018.
Founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972 to build on nostalgia for France's colonial past, the National Front found support among some so-called pieds noirs – former French settlers in Algeria who'd been forced to leave following independence from France in 1962. Many of them settled in cities like Marseille and Nice.
Eric Ciotti, an MP from the conservative Republicans party, who backed a controversial pact with the RN that split his party, won election in the city of Nice in a constituency where the RN increased its score by 24 points compared to 2022.
In the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, the vote was split three ways in most constituencies between the RN, the left and the centre, with the RN leading in half of them.
NFP strong in Paris region
However the centre of Marseille went to the hard-left France Unbowed – the largest party in the NFP alliance – with party coordinator Manuel Bompard on 67.49 percent.
NFP candidates qualified in 446 of the 577 constituencies, performing best in and around Paris. They came out on top in 13 of Paris's 18 constituencies.
The multi-cultural French capital is traditionally left-leaning and all the RN candidates were eliminated in the first round.
Nine NFP candidates were elected directly, including six women, three of whom were from the Greens.
In two constituencies in the working class Parisien suburb of Seine Saint Denis, which has a large population of immigrant descent, NFP candidates obtained more than 70 percent of the vote.
The left-wing alliance also performed well in the cities of Nantes, Toulouse and Strasbourg.
But it fell down in the formerly industrial north east, as well as the Meuse and Aube where its candidates failed to get through to the runoff.
Presidential alliance shaken but not out
Macron’s centrist Ensemble (Together) alliance made it through to the second round in 319 constituencies, down from 417 in 2022.
Ensemble candidates came out on top in 69 constituencies, five of which are in Paris.
It remains influential in the west part of the capital, parts of western France such as Maine-et-Loire, and in the southern rural area of Aveyron.
But it lost ground countrywide, scoring badly in areas where the RN and LFP did well – notably in Seine-Saint-Denis and Pas-de-Calais. Its candidates won less than 10 percent of Sunday's vote in several constituencies in those areas.
Only two Ensemble candidates – one in the Hauts-de-Seine west of Paris, and another on the Wallis and Futuna islands – were elected directly.
