Far-right wins first round in French elections

What happened

France's far-right National Rally party won the first round of snap parliamentary elections on Sunday, taking 33% of the votes, the Interior Ministry said Monday. The leftist New Popular Front coalition earned 28%, while President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) alliance came in third with 21%. 

Who said what

The "crushing victory" of Marine Le Pen's party brings its "long-taboo brand of nationalist and anti-immigrant politics to the threshold of power for the first time," The New York Times said. 

Le Pen, who lost the presidency to Macron in 2017 and 2022, said French voters had shown a clear "desire to turn the page after seven years of contemptuous and corrosive power." She urged supporters to give her party an absolute majority — at least 298 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly — in the July 7 second round, so her protégé, Jordan Bardella, could become prime minister.

France's two-round voting system has long "functioned as a bulwark against parties from the far ends of the political spectrum, encouraging voters to blow off steam in the first round" before finally electing an "establishment candidate," The Wall Street Journal said. That may not work this time, due mainly to the large number of three-way runoff elections resulting from high voter turnout. 

What next?

The difference between a National Rally majority and plurality in parliament is a "far-right government having a free hand" versus a "far-right government unable to do very much at all," the BBC said. Either way, Macron faces a "difficult three years" until his term ends in 2027, the Times said.

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