The indisputable victory of the Rassemblement National (RN) in the European elections, followed by the decision by President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call an immediate general election, have opened the gateway to power for the French nationalist Right.
The polls had been predicting this for weeks. Next, exit polls confirmed exactly what the pollsters had predicted, namely that the RN would win a crushing victory in the European elections on June 9th. By passing the 30% mark with 31.36% of vote share, it more than doubled that of the Renaissance presidential party, which fell below 15%.
This is in itself a political earthquake, especially as the turnout is the highest recorded since 1994, for a ballot that usually struggles to mobilise voters. The electoral map shows that 93% of French communes put the Rassemblement National in the lead, making the electoral tidal wave particularly easy to observe throughout the country and in overseas territories.
The election results demonstrate a spectacular rise for the Rassemblement National, analysed in depth by analysts such as Marc Vanguard. Only a few major urban centres, and Paris in particular, escaped this groundswell—demonstrating their total disconnection from majority public opinion.
The consequences of this result are made even more spectacular by the president’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly in order to hold new legislative elections, which have been announced for June 30th and July 7th.
Rumours of dissolution have been in the air in France for many months. On several occasions, political commentators hinted at the possibility of a dissolution initiated by the president, who is in trouble on a number of issues and lacks a majority of MPs in the national assembly. Now the rumour has become reality, much to the surprise of the presidential camp, who did not seriously believe that the president would act.
For some figures in the Macronist party camp, the news even reached them via the press. According to information provided by BFM TV, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal tried until the end to dissuade the president from proceeding with the dissolution and even offered to put his resignation on the table. This failed to change Emmanuel Macron’s mind.
The dissolution of the National Assembly, which is a constitutional weapon available to the president under the 5th French Republic, is a complicated and double-edged sword. The best example of this was provided by Jacques Chirac in 1997, when he dissolved the National Assembly, leading to new elections that proved to be absolutely disastrous for his camp. They led to a victory for the Left and the installation of the socialists, in what became known as a ‘cohabitation’ government.
Despite this precedent and the undeniable lessons it taught him, President Macron, who has lost momentum and popularity, persisted in his choice. Despite his shortcomings, he is nonetheless a fine politician and a skilful operator. It is not impossible that his decision to dissolve the government is part of a medium-term calculation that he hopes will work in his favour. By provoking early legislative elections at a time when the Rassemblement National is gaining ground, he can hope that the party of the national right will come to power and have to deal with a political situation that has deteriorated dramatically, both nationally and internationally.
It’s likely that Macron’s calculation is that, by the time the next presidential election is held in 2027, the RN would be positioned to be held to account for the disastrous years since Macron came to power. The president also hopes to discredit the populist RN by forcing it to govern, so that he can see his camp return to power in 2027. Any hypotheses about Macron’s hidden agenda must not prompt the Right to expect inevitable defeat at the end of the road. Politics remains the art of the possible.
In the president’s mind, this is a sort of consciously chosen worst-case policy. But this daring choice is risky and not necessarily a winning one. There is a non-negligible chance that the French will ultimately discover the advantages of having the national right in power and will not wish to return to Macronism when the time comes for the 2027 election. This has already happened at local level in many towns that have ‘dared’ to elect a Rassemblement National mayor. In the vast majority of cases, these mayors have been re-elected with comfortable majorities in subsequent elections.
All of France’s political forces are already concerned about the conditions under which the legislative elections scheduled for the end of June will be organised. Emmanuel Macron has chosen a date that corresponds to the legal minimum granted by the Constitution for the organisation of such an election—20 days. These 20 days will pass in a flash, leaving very little time for the various parties to get organised, find candidates, discuss alliances and coalitions, and draw up a credible programme. The party currently in power obviously has a much easier time of it.
In the meantime, discussions between the parties have already begun with a rare intensity on the left. The leftist NUPES coalition (Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale) that came into being in 2022 no longer exists. The old socialist party has risen from its ashes and has placed third, nipping at the heels of the Macronist Renaissance party with around 14% of the vote. Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Mélenchon—who has distinguished himself by controversies amid the Israeli-Hamas conflict—no longer appears to be the natural leader of the Left. But the fear of the ‘fascist peril’ is strongest, and on the evening of June 11th, the parties of the French Left announced that they wanted to work together to present as many single candidates as possible ‘against the far right.’
On the Right, one question is looming large: will the right-wing parties reach an agreement to maximise their chances of winning on June 30th? Late on Monday, June 10th, Marine Le Pen, leader of the RN deputies, Jordan Bardella, the party chairman, and Marion Maréchal, head of the Reconquête list led by Éric Zemmour, met to discuss the possibility of an alliance. Such a meeting was welcomed by many party activists, who were eagerly awaiting a genuine union of the Rights, but it was not yet a foregone conclusion—particularly in view of Éric Zemmour’s violent reticence towards the RN. At the end of the meeting, Marion Maréchal made a number of unambiguous statements about the possibility of forming an alliance with the RN, suggesting that she might go through with her intuition, even against the advice of Éric Zemmour, if the opportunity arose. A few moments later, Marine Le Pen, guest on the TF1 news, called for the broadest possible rallying of ‘patriots’.
The European elections confirmed the loss of momentum of the centre-right Les Républicains (LR) party, which won just 7.4% of the vote, one point less than the vote share it obtained in 2019, which was already considered very disappointing at the time. François-Xavier Bellamy’s personality won over some voters, but not enough to halt the party’s decline. For Les Républicains, the prospect of the legislative elections on June 30th is daunting, and the threat of extinction stronger than ever. Party president Éric Ciotti has stated that it is morally impossible for his political force to form an alliance with the Macronists, whom he blames for the state of decay into which the country has been plunged. However, an alliance with the RN does not appear to be on the agenda.
Marine Le Pen sees things differently: she explained in a TF1 interview that local agreements could be envisaged and that, in certain cases, the RN could refrain from presenting a candidate against a member of Les Républicains if a common interest were proven. This form of electoral alliance has yet to name itself. Marine Le Pen is certainly banking on local logic, which may go beyond national party instructions: it is likely that in some constituencies, many LR MPs will prefer to ally themselves with the RN rather than disappear. Jordan Bardella confirmed on Tuesday, June 11th, that LR personalities would be on RN lists.
The prospect of a possible victory for the RN in the elections on June 30th is sending parts of the far left into a state of panic. Demonstrations broke out across France and have immediately been the scene of uncontrolled violence by members of the far-left militia, who have no hesitation in attacking cafés identified as right-wing or even private individuals displaying a French flag on their balcony. Their attitude undermines the myth that violence is the prerogative of the extreme right—an extreme right that is widely fantasised—and risks having precisely the opposite effect of that intended.
France is therefore on the threshold of a major political change that would shake up a totally gridlocked political field. At this stage, it is impossible to predict whether or not the RN will win the victory that the first estimates suggest it will. The scale of the victory will largely depend on whether or not the Left is able to unite effectively.
If the Left is able to unite, the RN can hope to win strongly, because in the previous elections, RN MPs managed to win when they were up against the left or the far left—proof of the growing rejection by a majority of French people of this political family, which they no longer wish to hear about. On the other hand, a scattering of left-wing votes will leave the RN with less of a chance, because in the event of multiple lists Emmanuel Macron’s centre-left party will have a better chance of coming out on top.
The next few weeks promise to be most exciting.
