The RN dominates the first round (33.2%) ahead of the New Popular Front (28.1%), the presidential camp at only 21%, according to our Ipsos-Talan estimate.

Three weeks after the dissolution of the National Assembly announced by Emmanuel Macron, the first round of early legislative elections represents an unprecedented success for the far-right party and its allies.

The National Rally (RN) wave observed in the European elections is confirmed in the first round of the legislative elections. Three weeks after the dissolution of the National Assembly suddenly announced by Emmanuel Macron, the RN and his allies are well ahead on Sunday, June 30, with 33.2% of the vote, according to an Ipsos-Talan estimate for France Télévisions, Radio France, France 24, RFI and LCP.

For this election, the party of Jordan Bardella, big winner of the elections of June 9, allied itself with part of the Republicans, led by Eric Ciotti. On his own, the party to the flame achieves 29.2%, spraying his score from the first round of the 2022 legislative elections (18.68%), when he came in third position. Eric Ciotti and his supporters – allied to the RN and present in around sixty constituencies – won 4.0% of the vote. In the second round, the RN and its allies could be present in 390 to 430 constituencies.

The National Rally is clearly ahead of the New Popular Front (NFP), which was formed urgently following the European elections. The left-wing coalition garnered 28.1% of the vote, all party-related nuances combined, according to this estimate. This represents a better score than that achieved in 2022 by Nupes (25.78%), the previous alliance of the left then dominated by La France insoumise. She could be present in the second round in 370 to 410 constituencies. The various left-wing candidates, excluding NFP, obtained 1.7%.

The presidential camp, which is only in third place (21.0%), is the big loser of the evening, with a clear setback compared to the previous legislative elections, where it obtained 25.75% in the first round. For Emmanuel Macron and his supporters, the relative majority obtained in 2022, already experienced as a failure, is nothing more than a relic of the past. The second round of this election promises to be extremely complex for the Ensemble pour la République coalition (Renaissance-MoDem-Horizons): it could only be present in the second round in 290 to 330 constituencies.

Behind, the Republicans who rejected an alliance with the National Rally and refused to follow Eric Ciotti are doing even worse than in 2022. With 10.0% of the vote (compared to 13.62% two years ago), the party’s candidates will have to fight to keep a few dozen strongholds. They will be able to fight in 70 to 90 constituencies, according to Ipsos-Talan.

On the far right, Reconquest suffered a severe defeat, after narrowly exceeding the 5% mark in the June 9 vote and sending representatives to the European Parliament. Eric Zemmour’s party obtained 0.7% of the votes, less than in 2022 (4.24%) for its first attempt at the legislative elections.

Far-left candidates obtained 1.2% of the vote at the national level, while those of the sovereignist right collected 0.2%.

Launched immediately after the dissolution of June 9, the legislative election campaign was marked by numerous negotiations between the different political forces. The left quickly agreed on a shared program and common candidacies, with a political rebalancing in favor of the Socialist Party facing La France insoumise, hegemonic on the left in 2022. On the other side of the political spectrum, The Republicans experienced a serious internal crisis with Eric Ciotti’s choice to ally with the RN to try to win an absolute majority in the National Assembly. This decision was criticized on a political level, but also on a legal level, with several exclusion procedures which were unsuccessful.

In the middle of these two blocs, the presidential coalition painfully recorded Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the elected Assembly in 2022, in which his camp only had a relative majority. After the defeat of the European elections, many candidates decided not to put forward the figure of the head of state, for fear of being associated with his image. Several figures from the outgoing majority have also distanced themselves from the president, such as Gabriel Attal or Edouard Philippe. During these three weeks of campaigning, the presidential camp was also divided on the attitude to adopt in the event of a second round duel between an RN candidate and another from the NFP.

According to our estimate, between 65 and 85 candidates were elected in the first round. Based on the results, the Ipsos-Talan projection shows that the RN and its allies should – barring any surprises – form the first bloc in the National Assembly at the end of the second round, on Sunday, July 7. The far right could thus approach the absolute majority, a sine qua non condition set by Jordan Bardella to occupy the post of Prime Minister. However, many withdrawals could occur between now and the deadline for submitting lists for the second round, set for Tuesday at 6 p.m., which means that the seat projections made between now and then should be read with caution.

To try to avoid this predicted political earthquake, the leaders of the New Popular Front, including Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called the centrist bloc and its voters to the Republican front, a reflex whose relevance and effectiveness are increasingly questioned, election after election.

According to the Ipsos-Talan estimate, there would be triangulars in an estimated range between 285 and 315 constituencies, while duels would concern between 150 to 170 constituencies.