4 graphs to understand the historic score of the RN – L’Express

There is still a large part of the cake to be shared. The leaders of the RN, led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, and those of the New Popular Front, met on Sunday, July 7 for a “decisive” second round, already erasing the “Macronist bloc” at the end of the first round of the legislative elections. The National Rally came in first place with 33% of the vote, against 28% for the New Popular Front, far ahead of Emmanuel Macron’s camp at 20.8%. The voting instructions for the second round were also at the heart of the election night.

From 8 p.m., the head of state turned to July 7 with a written declaration calling, facing the RN, for “a large, clearly democratic and republican gathering for the second round”. “The far right is at the gates of power” and “our objective is clear: to prevent the National Rally from having an absolute majority in the second round,” added Gabriel Attal from Matignon. On the side of the New Popular Front, the parties have already given clear instructions: any candidate who comes in third place will have to withdraw. But for La France insoumise, this will only apply where the RN has “arrived in the lead”, specified Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella have called on voters to give the National Rally an absolute majority in the second round of the legislative elections, with the party’s president promising that in this case he would be “Prime Minister of all French people”. “The French have delivered a final verdict,” he said.

10.6 million people voted for the RN

The “strong participation” this Sunday, in the first round of the legislative elections, did not prevent a “massive vote” in favor of the National Rally whose “electoral dynamic” is growing, underline pollsters and political scientists, even if they remain cautious on Jordan Bardella’s ability to obtain an absolute majority on July 7. In total, 10.6 million people put an RN ballot in the ballot box, or 21.54% of those registered. In 2022, 8.68% voted for the National Rally.

More than fifty years after the founding of the National Front, the far-right party, which became the National Rally, went, at the polls, from marginality to trivialization, becoming the leading formation in France. Twenty days after the dissolution of the National Assembly on June 9, he is at the gates of power after having garnered around 33% of the votes on Sunday in the first round of the early legislative elections.

To understand this success, we must rewind a little: the “National Front for French Unity”, a party resulting from nationalist groups including Ordre Nouveau, was created on October 5, 1972. After a score of less than 1% in the presidential election of 1974, its president Jean-Marie Le Pen chose the fight against immigration as a priority. In 1983, first major electoral victory: Jean-Pierre Stirbois, general secretary of the FN, obtained 16.7% in the first round of municipal elections in Dreux (Eure-et-Loir) and allied himself with the right in the second. From 1992 to 1998, the party took the cities of Toulon (Var), Marignane (Bouches-du-Rhône) and Orange (Vaucluse).

Then came the thunderbolt of 2002: Jean-Marie Le Pen qualified for the second round of the presidential election against Jacques Chirac with 16.86% of the vote. At the head of the party since January 2011, Marine Le Pen, with a “normalization” strategy highlighting social issues, rose to 17.9% in the 2012 presidential election, after her father’s poor score in 2007 (10 .44%). Marine Le Pen wants to symbolize the “transformation” of the FN into a “party of government” and alliances and it becomes the National Rally (RN) in 2018. Result: a first place in the 2019 European elections, with 23.3% of the votes. voice.

39 RN candidates elected in the first round

In 2024, 39 candidates supported by the National Rally were elected as deputies in the first round, including Marine Le Pen (more than 58% of the vote in Pas-de-Calais), Sébastien Chenu and Julien Odoul, a first for the Le Penist party which had 88 deputies in the previous legislature. For its part, the New Popular Front has 32 candidates elected as deputies in the first round, according to official figures from the Ministry of the Interior compiled by AFP. In detail, the Insoumis sent 20 deputies, the Socialists five, the Ecologists also five, and the Communists two.

On the France Insoumise side, several leaders were re-elected, such as its coordinator, Manuel Bompard, in Marseille, or the president of its parliamentary group, Mathilde Panot, in Val-de-Marne. Furthermore, the leader of the socialists, Olivier Faure, was also easily re-elected in Seine-Maritime (53%), as was the Ecologist Sandrine Rousseau in the 9th constituency of Paris (52%).

Finally, there are more than 300 constituencies in a three-way situation – or even a four-way situation in a handful of cases. François Ruffin finds himself in an unfavourable position in the Somme and could owe his salvation to the withdrawal of the “Ensemble pour la République” candidate; the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who came out on top in the first round in his constituency of Tourcoing (North), will face two opponents in the second round, an RN and a candidate from the New Popular Front. The candidates still in the running have until Tuesday 6pm to decide whether or not to continue.