ASSEMBLY. The second round of the 2024 early legislative elections will take place this Sunday, July 7. What will be the composition of the National Assembly after the vote?
A completely new National Assembly will take shape on Sunday evening, July 7. Following the second round of legislative elections, the political balances promise to be shaken up in the chamber. Since the historic decision ofEmmanuel Macron to dissolve the lower house of Parliament on June 9, a recomposition into three blocs is looming. After the first round, only one camp seems able to obtain an absolute majority: that of the National Rally. But its opponents are determined to do everything to prevent it. What will the lower house of Parliament look like the day after the vote?
76 deputies were elected in the first round: 39 for the National Rally, 32 for the New Popular Front, one for Renaissance, one for Les Républicains and three from various right-wing parties. For the rest, the polls’ projections promise the National Rally an almost absolute majority: the Ipsos Talan barometer allocates between 230 and 280 seats to the far-right party and its allies. The New Popular Front is awarded between 125 and 165, the presidential coalition between 70 and 100. LR would keep between 41 and 61, while various left-wing candidates would obtain between 11 and 19. Finally, between 22 and 30 seats would go to other candidates.
Will the Republican Front come to put a spoke in the wheels of the RN? As soon as the results of the first round of the legislative elections were announced, withdrawal strategies were triggered: in the three-way races, more than a hundred left-wing candidates qualified for the second round preferred to withdraw to block the far right. Around sixty candidates from the presidential coalition did the same. From then on, the transfer of votes to the second round are very uncertain and open the way to a very open election.
Who will be the deputies of the new National Assembly?
Due to the lightning campaign, a historically high number of outgoing MPs stood for re-election: there were 532 in the first round, to which must be added 22 ministers in office, who had won a seat in 2022 before withdrawing in favor of their substitute. Only 23 MPs had decided to withdraw, including 15 who sat in the presidential majority. In 2022, 136 outgoing MPs had not been re-elected.
76 MPs are already assured of regaining a seat after the first round. Among them, many well-known figures from the different parties: Marine Le Pen and Sébastien Chenu for the National Rally, Mathilde Panot, Clémence Guetté and Manuel Bompard for La France Insoumise, Olivier Faure for the Socialist Party, Sandrine Rousseau for the environmentalists, and Philippe Juvin for Les Républicains.
What was the composition of the National Assembly since 2022?
The legislative elections of June 12 and 19, 2022 had renewed the composition of the National Assembly in an unprecedented way: although re-elected President of the Republic a few weeks earlier, in April 2022, Emmanuel Macron found himself deprived of an absolute majority in the lower house of Parliament. The presidential majority (Renaissance ex-LREM, MoDem, Horizons) had thus lost around a hundred deputies compared to the previous term, to reach 250 seats, while the absolute majority is set at 289.
In this new Assembly, the opposition had therefore placed itself in a position of strength, although it was very divided. The left had started this 16th legislature of the Fifth Republic with 141 seats in the hemicycle, thanks to a historic coalition, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes). The National Rally had never been so powerful for its part in the Assembly, with 89 deputies. The Republicans, on the other hand, had recorded a clear decline compared to the previous legislature, going from 101 to 62 seats.
Of the 577 outgoing deputies, 533 are currently standing for re-election. This is therefore a match between incumbents and new candidates that is beginning. Here is the list of deputies who made up the National Assembly, which is set to be significantly renewed.
Among the highlights of the 16th legislature that officially began on June 28, 2022, the National Assembly elected its first female president, Yaël Braun-Pivet. Six vice-presidents were elected in the following days, including two from the presidential majority, two from Nupes and two from the National Rally. The presidential majority also obtained two quaestor positions, the last of which went to LR MP Eric Ciotti. Of the eight standing committees of the Assembly, seven logically found their presidents among the MPs of the majority coalition. The eighth, the highly coveted Finance Committee, which is traditionally chaired by an opposition MP, elected the MP from La France Insoumise as its head.