Having come out on top in the first round of the 2024 legislative elections on June 30, the National Rally has confirmed the expected result. But the party led by Jordan Bardella could be deprived of its majority on the evening of the second round.
A National Rally wave has indeed swept across France during the first round of the legislative elections on Sunday, June 30. With 29.25% of the vote according to the Ministry of the Interior (to which can be added the 3.90% obtained by the LR-RN candidates against whom the party had not placed any candidate), the RN has succeeded in its bet of clearly coming out on top in view of the second round. If some of its leading figures like Marine Le Pen, in Pas-de-Calais, are elected in the first round, the majority of RN candidates will still have to go through a second round on Sunday, July 7.
Will this allow the RN to obtain a majority, even a relative one? This is the main issue of the campaign leading to the second round. If the party with the flame will certainly beat its record of deputies (89 obtained in 2022) in the National Assembly, the absolute majority placed at 289 seats will be very difficult to achieve. The latest estimates made by the various polling institutes project between 200 and 230 seats for the far-right party.
What result for the RN in the second round of the legislative elections?
The party chaired since 2021 by Jordan Bardella, once closely followed by the New Popular Front, emerged as the big winner of the first round of early legislative elections on June 30. What will happen on the evening of the second round on Sunday, July 7? A few hours before the verdict, the theory of a victory without an absolute majority appears to be the most plausible, with the RN forming the first group of deputies in the National Assembly, reinforced by its Ciottist allies. The 289 seats needed to obtain a majority, however, seem out of reach for the RN, in particular due to the numerous withdrawals of other parties to block it, which have divided the number of announced three-way races by three (there will be 89 three-way races in the second round).
How many deputies for the RN after the legislative elections?
We will have to wait for the results of the second round of the legislative elections, Sunday, July 7, to know the number of RN deputies who will now sit in the National Assembly. The latest opinion polls published in the last hours of the campaign indicate a downward trend for the RN. While some polling institutes suggested at the beginning of the week the possibility of an absolute majority for Jordan Bardella’s party, the trend would rather be towards obtaining around 200 seats at the end of the second round of the legislative elections this Sunday, July 7. The number of seats by party and not by political union (NFP, RN, Ens!) are given below. The absolute majority is 289 deputies.
If it obtains 200 to 230 seats at the end of these early legislative elections, the RN will probably become the first group in the National Assembly. But without an absolute majority, Jordan Bardella, designated within the far-right party as the candidate for the post of Prime Minister, will not be in a position to become the future head of government. Above all, the National Rally will have great difficulty in forming alliances to obtain a relative majority in the hemicycle, which would obviously greatly reduce its role in the Assembly.