French left coalition comes out on top in elections, in shock upset over the far right

PARIS — After the shock of French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call snap elections last month, another surprise came for French voters as polls closed Sunday evening: the far-right National Party (RN) did not receive the majority of the parliamentary seats pollsters had predicted. It didn’t even come close. 

With voter turnout at its highest rate in more than 40 years, initial estimates suggested the majority of seats would go to the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing coalition which quickly banded together just days after Macron announced that legislative elections would take place.

"The will of the people must be strictly respected," Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the left-wing leader, told a crowd of hundreds of supporters in northern Paris Sunday evening, declaring the results as a victory for the newly formed alliance, adding the results were evidence of the country’s outright refusal of a far-right government. “Our people have clearly rejected the worst case scenario,” he said. “Tonight, the National Rally is far from having an absolute majority.”

Early results put the left-wing NFP with the most seats, but short of an absolute majority needed to govern; Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition in second; and the far-right RN in third. Final results aren’t expected until early Monday morning, but with no party reaching an absolute majority, the country’s future remains uncertain.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced his resignation about an hour after the results came in Sunday evening, and Macron will be under pressure to appoint someone from the NFP coalition. 

The elections, which saw a 67.1% turnout, the highest in over 40 years, point to an outright rejection of a far-right government. Even if the RN did make its most significant gains in the party’s history, its campaign has been tainted by accusations of racism and antisemitism.

At the RN electoral base in eastern Paris, supporters watched in shock and disbelief as the initial figures came in on a giant television screen. “I’m incredibly disappointed, but democracy has spoken,” Joscelin Cousin, a 19-year-old RN supporter, told NPR minutes after the first results were announced. “I suppose people are still afraid of the false caricature image that RN has spent years working dispell,” he said. Stacks of celebratory champagne flutes were barely touched as the crowd quickly dispersed.

Party leader Marine Le Pen was nowhere to be seen, instead sending out her young protégé and party president 28-year-old Jordan Bardella to give a sombre speech acknowledging the party’s underwhelming results. "Unfortunately, alliances of dishonor tonight have deprived the French people of a policy of recovery,” he said, adding that the party’s fight for power was far from over. "More than ever, the National Rally embodies the only alternative and will stand by the French people. We don't want power for power's sake, but to give it back to the French people.”