The second round of the legislative elections takes place this Sunday, July 7. After the surge of the National Rally last week, major trends can already characterize this second round…
A third round of voting for nearly 50 million voters in just one month… The French are called to the polls for the second round of the 2024 legislative elections, this Sunday, July 7. A new meeting that follows the first round last week and the single round of the European elections that took place on June 9. The objective this time: to elect the approximately 510 deputies who remain after 76 seats were already filled last Sunday. Above all, it is about regaining a parliamentary majority for the country, after the dissolution of the Assembly, decided by surprise by Emmanuel Macron at the beginning of June, in a concern for “clarification”.
The results of the legislative elections this Sunday evening will normally be the foundations of this new majority and this “clarification” that the head of state has called for. And yet, it is a safe bet that no clear direction will be given at the end of the vote, which could plunge France a little more into fog, more than it will clarify the situation. If the National Rally has been given the victory by many studies and projections in recent weeks, it should fail to obtain an absolute majority. Faced with it, the left united under the banner of the New Popular Front and the declining presidential majority will not have any more free rein to govern alone. And for the moment, it is difficult to see a coalition of good wills emerging…
But an avalanche of polls and two rounds of voting in one year, let alone in three weeks, inevitably reveal lessons about the political situation in a country. Beyond the result of the legislative elections at 8pm on Sunday, a new recomposition could be confirmed, following three major trends.
1- A tripartite division of French politics shaken up
We repeated it several evenings in a row in May and then in June 2017, without ever really hesitating and without having really questioned it since: France had truly entered a “tripartition” of the political landscape. In other words, a change in logic taking it from the historical opposition between the left and the right, to a fight between three blocs; a “social” bloc resulting from the different components of the left, a centrist bloc embodied by the emergence of Emmanuel Macron and a liberal and progressive movement, and finally a radical right, conservative, sovereignist and even nationalist bloc.
But it is clear that this tripartism is at best unbalanced today, at worst on the verge of disappearing, barely seven years after its advent. Because this new centrist bloc – from La République en Marche in 2017 to Renaissance and its allies within the majority today – will never have really succeeded in establishing itself and maintaining its original level in the ballot boxes. After five and a half years at the head of the country, and while he already had only a relative majority in the National Assembly since the 2022 legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron sees his movement curling up and even fragmenting between its left-wing components (Territoire de Progrès since absorbed into Renaissance) and right-wing components (from Modem to Horizons).
The results of the 2017 legislative elections, the day after Emmanuel Macron’s first election, gave him an absolute majority in the National Assembly with 351 elected deputies (49.11% of the vote). The Union of the Right and the Center, which was announced to be on the verge of disappearing, was then credited with 26.95% of the votes, electing 136 deputies. As for the National Front (ex-RN) and La France Insoumise, the two parties had to make do with 8 and 17 elected representatives respectively, making them virtually non-existent in Parliament. From now on, the Macronists hope to keep between 118 and 148 seats, against just under 200 for the New Popular Front and up to 250 for the National Rally and its new allies from Ciott.
Which raises questions about a possible return of a form of two-party system, which would now tend to distribute the balance between, on the one hand, a radical right bloc up to the extreme right and on the other, a more or less radical left as well. If there is a “clarification”, it will perhaps come from the next presidential election, in 2027.
2- A Republican dam in question
Having won the European elections (31.37% of the vote), then the first round of the legislative elections (33.15%), and having been given the lead in the second round, the National Rally was confronted during the campaign between the two rounds with a new Republican barrier. Born in the 1980s after an initial surge by the National Front and in the legislative elections (already), this “barrier” against the extreme right had notably got the better of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s ambitions in the 2002 presidential election, against Jacques Chirac (82.21% of the vote compared to 17.79% of the vote in the second round), after an intense week of demonstrations.
The situation is radically different more than 20 years later and after the activation of this “republican barrier” during almost all national elections since. A part of the right, notably Les Républicains through their president Éric Ciotti, began to move closer to the Le Pen camp in an assumed manner, breaking the “sanitary cordon” that existed between the heirs of the Gaullist movement and the far-right party, founded by former Waffen-SS and nostalgics for French Algeria. The announcement by the outgoing deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes of a rally for the legislative elections had the effect of a bomb in the right-wing party born from the UMP. During these 2024 legislative elections, there were 69 LR candidates who appeared on the starting list in the first round, with the label “Union of the Far Right”.
Certainly, 221 candidates from the left and the majority will decide to withdraw in the inter-round, while more than 300 three-way races, favorable by definition to the RN, were proposed to the voters. The strategy is also proving to be profitable according to the projections published just before the end of the campaign: the far-right coalition can thus only hope for a relative majority in the National Assembly, against an absolute majority that was promised to it on the evening of the first round. However, this new victory of the “republican barrier”, mathematically efficient, will have been imposed by the candidates and the parties themselves.
The results of the polls conducted during the legislative campaign will show a shift in opinion on this “Republican barrier” so rooted in the 2000s and 2010s. At the end of June, an Odoxa study for Public Sénat indicated that 41% of those surveyed felt ready to block the RN, against 47% who preferred to block the New Popular Front. They were even 44% in favor of the presidential bloc. 42% of those surveyed considered that the arrival of Jordan Bardella at Matignon would be a bad thing. If they did not want it, 29% of those surveyed even assured that they did not fear the arrival of Bardella at the head of the government.
Whatever the outcome of the 2024 legislative elections, the far-right party will have gained at least one thing: it has shed its status as an absolute deterrent or threat to the country a little more in 2024. A success for the strategy of de-demonization and professionalization launched by Marine Le Pen when she took the reins of the party. Conversely, the rejection of the New Popular Front by supporters of the right, the center and the far right appeared to be significant.
3- Political instability that could last
A third trend should also be confirmed in the results of the legislative elections: no clear majority should emerge at the end of the second round this Sunday, July 7. Consequently, and without an absolute majority acquired by one of the three blocs, it is difficult to know what policy will be able to be implemented. Who can in this situation be appointed to Matignon as Prime Minister? Without an absolute majority, it is difficult indeed to be able to govern with the full confidence of Parliament. Jordan Bardella has already warned that in the event that his camp only obtains a relative majority, he will refuse the post of Prime Minister.
A Macronist would have little chance of obtaining an appointment in the event of a new snub at the ballot box, as the risk of seeing the government overthrown is too great. Finally, on the left, there will also be a lack of elected representatives to govern autonomously. Not to mention that no credible and consensual candidate seems to be emerging. In a Kafkaesque scenario, failing to resign, the head of state could be tempted to dissolve the National Assembly again. But he will not be able to do so before next year according to the rules established by the Constitution. According to a political executive allied to the presidential majority, “a window of opportunity between June and December 2025” would thus be possible, reports Le Figaro. It remains to be seen, however, whether a new election would be so different from the one we are experiencing today. And whether this instability is circumstantial or whether it promises to be more lasting.