Exit polls suggest far-right RN took about 34 percent of votes; President Macron\u2019s centrist alliance slumped to third with 20.3 percent vote
\n France
\nFrance\u2019s far-right National Rally (RN) party has won a resounding victory in the first round of the country\u2019s snap parliamentary elections.
\nMarine Le Pen\u2019s RN and allies took about 33 percent of the vote, according to official results released by the Ministry of Interior. The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition finished next with about 28 percent, and President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s centrist Ensemble alliance could manage about 20 percent votes.
\nThe result puts RN in a position where it may start hoping about forming a government. However, forces across the rest of the political spectrum have suggested that they will cooperate to block the far-right party in the second round vote on July 7.
\nMacron stunned the country by calling the snap election after the RN surged in European Parliament elections last month, gambling that the anti-immigration party with historical links to anti-Semitism would not repeat that success at the national level.
\nIn party leader Le Pen\u2019s Henin-Beaumont constituency in northern France, supporters waved French flags and sang La Marseillaise, the national anthem.
\n\u201cThe French have shown their willingness to turn the page on a contemptuous and corrosive power,\u201d she told the cheering crowd.
\nRN president Jordan Bardella, Le Pen\u2019s protege and candidate for prime minister, pointed out that the second round would be \u201cthe most important in the history of the French Fifth Republic\u201d.
\nHe said Macron\u2019s party has been wiped out and accused the far left of creating an \u201cexistential crisis\u201d representing \u201ca real danger to France and all the French people\u201d.
\nIn Sunday\u2019s voting, 78 of the National Assembly\u2019s 577 seats were won outright, by candidates who got more than 50 percent of the vote in their district, according to French newspaper Liberation\u2019s analysis of the Interior Ministry data. Of those, 38 were from the National Rally, including Le Pen herself.
\nEarlier, based on an exit poll, pollster Elabe projected the RN and its allies to win 260-310 parliament seats in the second voting round on July 7, while Ipsos projected a range of 230-280 seats for RN and its allies in a poll for France TV.
\nLe Pen and Bardella have said their party is chasing an absolute majority \u2013 a total of 289 seats \u2013 in the National Assembly, France\u2019s lower house of parliament.<\/p>\n
Macron calls for \u2018broad democratic alliance\u2019
\nThe RN\u2019s chances of winning power and forming a government depend on political dealmaking by its rivals over the coming days. In the past, centre-right and centre-left parties have worked together to keep the far right from power.
\nMacron called for a \u201cbroad\u201d democratic alliance against the far right.
\n\u201cFaced with National Rally, the time has come for a broad, clearly democratic and republican alliance for the second round,\u201d he said in a statement.
\nHe added that the high turnout in the first round spoke of \u201cthe importance of this vote for all our compatriots and the desire to clarify the political situation\u201d.
\nPrime Minister Gabriel Attal warned that the far right was at \u201cthe gates of power\u201d, and that \u201cno vote should go to the National Rally\u201d.
\nJean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the left-wing New Popular Front, said he would withdraw candidates who placed third in the first round of parliamentary elections to ensure two-horse races to defeat the highest number of far-right RN candidates in the coming vote.
\nWhen no candidate reaches 50 percent in the first round, the top two contenders automatically qualify for the second round, as well as all those with 12.5 percent of registered voters. In the run-off, whoever wins the most votes takes the constituency.
\n\u201cIn line with our principles and our stances in all previous elections, we will never allow the National Rally to achieve victory,\u201d said Melenchon.
\nLaurent Berger, the former secretary-general of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour and current president of the European Trade Union Confederation, urged for a \u201cblockade\u201d in a post on X.
\n\u201cThis evening, our democracy and our republican values \u200b\u200bare at stake in the face of the National Rally on the threshold of power,\u201d Berger said.
\n\u201cIn the face of danger \u2026 It is imperative to block the extreme right.\u201d
\nHigh turnout
\nThe turnout for the election was nearly 68 percent, the highest since 1997.
\nFor years, the RN was a political pariah in France, but Le Pen has sought to rebrand the party since taking control from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen and has now brought it closer to power than it has ever been.
\nAccording to Rim-Sarah Alouane, an academic at Toulouse Capitole University, Le Pen \u201chas done plastic surgery to her party\u201d.
\n\u201cBut is it still the same rotten, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-minorities party \u2026 we know what the far right is standing for,\u201d Alouane told Al Jazeera.
\nShe said the results of this vote were also a rejection of Macron\u2019s policies, with the president seen as \u201chaughty\u201d and pandering to the wealthy.
\n\u201cI know personally about cases of people who voted for the far right because of the policies made by Macron, especially at an economic level,\u201d Alouane said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exit polls suggest far-right RN took about 34 percent of votes; President Macron\u2019s centrist alliance slumped to third with 20.3 percent vote France France\u2019s far-right National Rally (RN) party has won a resounding victory in the first round of the country\u2019s snap parliamentary elections. Marine Le Pen\u2019s RN and allies took about 33 percent of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-415855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n