At the end of the second round, the RN and its allies will only be the third force in the Assembly, with 138 to 145 deputies, according to our Ipsos-Talan estimate.
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This is a cold shower for the National Rally. Certainly, the far-right party is gaining weight in the National Assembly, winning with its Ciottist allies between 138 and 145 seats at the end of the second round of the legislative elections, Sunday July 7, according to our Ipsos-Talan estimate for France Télévisions, Radio France, France 24, RFI and LCP. With the support of the Republicans who followed Eric Ciotti, the RN will send the largest contingent of deputies in its history to the Palais-Bourbon.
But Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella finished very far from their objective of obtaining the absolute majority in order to govern the country, hammered home throughout the campaign. The RN-LR coalition ended third, behind the New Popular Front and the presidential alliance of Emmanuel Macron.
In detail, the RN managed to elect between 124 and 128 deputies under its colors at the end of the second round of the legislative elections. A significant progression compared to the previous legislative election of 2022, during which the far-right party had won 89 seats (before losing one during a partial legislative election in 2023). Eric Ciotti, contested president of the Republicans (LR) since his choice to ally with Jordan Bardella, saw between 14 and 17 of his candidates elected at the end of the second round. From the first round, on Sunday June 30, 39 candidates from the RN and its allies had been elected.
Outgoing MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy wins with 57.48% of the vote in the 4th constituency of the Somme against the majority candidate Anthony Gest (42.52%). In the 2nd constituency of Lot-et-Garonne, Hélène Laporte narrowly avoided re-election in the first round. The former vice-president of the Assembly won (57.2%) against Christophe Courrègelongue (42.8%), the candidate of the New Popular Front. Marine Le Pen’s older sister, Marie-Caroline Le Pen, lost her bet in the 4th constituency of Sarthe where she was parachuted in. She obtained 49.77% of the votes, behind the outgoing rebellious deputy Elise Leboucher (50.23%). The president of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti, was re-elected in the 1st constituency of Alpes-Maritimes (45.14%), where he faced the candidate of the New Popular Front Olivier Salerno (32.13%) and Graig Monetti of the presidential majority (22.73%) in a three-way race.
The results of the second round bury any prospect of cohabitation between the RN and Emmanuel Macron. It is a snub for Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, who will remain in the opposition. “This is the simplest scenario”predicted RN MEP Philippe Olivier, if his party did not win an absolute majority. “We laugh and watch Mr. Macron deal with his institutional chaos.” But the party’s momentum has been halted by the Republican withdrawals of its political opponents, which will undoubtedly worry the RN’s leadership in view of the upcoming elections.
In front of activists gathered in a room in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, the president of the RN denounced “unnatural political alliances designed to prevent the French from freely choosing a different policy by all means”. Jordan Bardella began to discuss the future of his party. “LThe RN will expand its work in the National Assembly, first behind Marine Le Pen, and in the country”as well as in the European Parliament, “within a large group which will weigh in the balance of power in Europe to refuse migratory submersion, punitive ecology and the confiscation of our sovereignty”, he promised.