Parliamentary election in France, June-July 2024

The 2024 parliamentary elections are taking place in a special context, since they are the result of a dissolution declared by the President of the Republic immediately after the publication of the results of the June 9 European elections, which were particularly disappointing for the presidential majority, whose list received 14.6% of the vote, almost 17 points less than that of the Rassemblement National (31.3%), which came out on top. Not only is the Renaissance list’s score seen as a slap in the face for a movement that claims to be pro-European, it also accentuates the political difficulties encountered by a presidential majority which, since the 2022 legislative elections, has only a relative presence in the National Assembly. The first two years of Emmanuel Macron’s second term were marked by the frequent use of Article 49-3 by the Prime Minister, including for the adoption of a pension reform that was strongly contested both in Parliament and in various mobilizations over several weeks. The President of the Republic, affected by his shrinking political room for manoeuvre, has resorted to his characteristic prerogative, conferred by articles 12 and 19 of the Constitution, by calling new elections. Given the results of the European elections, the main issue at stake in most political and media narratives is the possibility of the far right obtaining a majority in the Assembly and taking over the government; indeed, RN president Jordan Bardella declared his desire to be Prime Minister even before the first round of legislative elections. The incomprehension and even indignation aroused by the President’s decision were reinforced by the timetable chosen ¹ , since, in addition to the imminence of the Paris Olympic Games, the electoral campaign was reduced to three weeks.

Renewed electoral alliances

After the astonishment of the dissolution, the first astonishment at the start of this tight electoral sequence was to be found in the political offer. First of all, a left-wing electoral alliance was rapidly reconstituted (and, it would seem, against Elysée’s expectations), giving rise to single candidates in the vast majority of constituencies (546 out of 577). Renamed Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), this alliance follows on from the NUPES alliance formed in 2022, but, while giving priority to incumbents, results in a significant redistribution of constituencies between the different partners. In 2022, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon won 22% of the vote, the very low scores of the Socialist candidate and the Ecologist candidate favored LFI’s dominance in nomination negotiations and, logically, in the composition of the Left in national representation. In 2024, after two years of intense political conflict, both in general and between left-wing allies and even within parties, the list supported by the Socialist Party (albeit led by a candidate who was not a member) came out 4 points ahead of the LFI list at the European elections, allowing the Socialists to win around a hundred more (unevenly winnable) constituencies under the NFP agreement than under the Nupes agreement, mainly at the expense of LFI, since the share of the Ecologists and the PCF remained more or less stable.

On the right, while Les Républicains, diminished in the Assembly in 2022, had sought to enhance their pivotal role in the context of a relative majority, by providing regular support, albeit verbally critical, for government texts ² , party president Éric Ciotti announced his decision to enter into an electoral agreement with the RN, provoking the disapproval of other party leaders and, de facto, a form of dissidence under the UDR electoral label (qualified as a far-right electoral agreement by the Ministry of the Interior).

Lastly, it should be noted that the immediate calling of elections has favored an overall reduction in the political offer, with a one-third drop in the number of candidates compared to the 2022 legislative elections (around 4,000 vs. 6,300), resulting in greater concentration of access to the first part of public funding for political life (indexed to the number of votes received in the first round), to the detriment of smaller groups, which find it harder to mobilize in a hurry.

The “Republican front” dynamic

On June 30, 2024, the first round of legislative elections saw a rebound in voter turnout (66.7%) compared to the 2002 elections, which followed the presidential election, and more generally compared to a strong trend of disaffection with this ballot, particularly since the introduction of the five-year system and the inversion of the electoral calendar (with abstention even exceeding 50% in 2017 and again in 2022).

In the legislative elections, the RN confirmed the electoral momentum of the European elections, despite a very different voting system (first-past-the-post, two-round vs. list-based, proportional, single-round), territorialization (577 constituencies vs. a single constituency) and material stakes (the possible government of the country vs. more elected representatives and a change in the balance of power within the European Parliament). The RN came out on top in the first round, with 29.5% of the votes cast, and even 33.5% with its allies (notably the “Ciottistes”). It even won 39 (37 + 2) seats straight away, confirming its ability to anchor itself territorially (34 incumbents were re-elected), while suggesting the offensive capacity of the RN label itself, even in left-wing territories (as in the victory of a candidate freshly parachuted into a historic Communist stronghold in the North, held by the party’s media-friendly leader). Above all, it increased its number of votes, more than doubling its total compared to 2022 (10.6 million vs. 4.2 million) and improving it by 2.5 million compared to the first round of the presidential elections, when turnout was higher (73.7%). The NFP, the second political force in the first round with 28% of the vote, also benefited from the higher turnout, obtaining over 3 million more votes than the Nupes in 2002. The increase was much less for the presidential coalition (Ensemble, ENS), which came in third (20%), by just 600,000 votes, and marked a sharp fall from E. Macron’s result in the presidential election (6.4 million vs. 9.7). In fact, in no French territory did support for the government exceed 25%.

As expected, on the evening of the first round of voting, the relatively high level of voter turnout meant that more than 300 triangular results were possible. This configuration gave rise to scenarios of a RN majority in the Assembly, with absolute majority even evoked. These projections prompted calls for the formation of a “republican front”, involving the withdrawal of third-place candidates and the transfer of votes to the RN’s opponent, whoever he or she might be. The response to these calls was massive (210 candidates withdrew, reducing the number of triangular contests to 89), but very uneven: 125 NFP candidates withdrew, compared with 80 from the ENS coalition and just 3 from LR (one of which went to RN), reflecting the diversity of positions expressed by party leaders: quick and clear-cut instructions from the NFP, later and more cryptic from ENS, non-existent from LR. In fact, the further to the right of the political spectrum we move, the less the republican front worked; in duels with the RN, less than 30% of LR voters voted for an NFP candidate, and only 53% for an ENS candidate. ³

The “benefits” of withdrawals were also unevenly distributed. The most favorable ratio was clearly for LR (29 withdrawals in its favor vs. 2 made), followed by the outgoing ENS majority (93 vs. 80), then the NFP (79 vs. 125). Vote transfers also varied, with ENS (winning 85 of its 93 duels with RN following a withdrawal, i.e. 9/10) outperforming the NFP (51/79, i.e. 7/10). Finally, the success of the republican front depended on whether the NFP candidate was insoumis or of another component (minus 15 points on average if LFI), suggesting an electoral resonance of the rhetorical strategy deployed in particular by various leaders of the right and of the central bloc to apply to LFI the same register of symbolic disqualification as to the RN (“outside the republican arc”).

Thus, the Republican front, whether or not it involved a withdrawal, had a significant impact on the results of the second round, which also saw no drop in turnout (66.6%). Two indicators clearly illustrate the impact of the Republican front: the RN won less than a third of the duels in which it was involved (93/353), and 154 RN candidates who came out on top in the first round ended up losing.

In the end, the NFP came out on top in the second round, winning the largest number of deputies (178), ahead of the ENS presidential coalition (150) and the RN (125, plus 17 “Ciottist” allies). Following the inclusion of deputies in the eleven parliamentary groups, the NFP had 193 seats, the presidential coalition 166, the RN and its allies 142 and the Republican Right 47.

RN’s growth

One of the first lessons to be learned from these early legislative elections is that the RN is on the rise and taking root as one of the most powerful forces in the political arena. Both electoral (leading in the total number of votes, with around 32% in both rounds) and institutional (54 additional deputies, first party represented in the Assembly) progress, accompanied by increased public funding and collaborators. These resources suggest that the party will continue to professionalize (its efforts to normalize the party were partly thwarted between the two rounds by the exposure of dozens of puppet candidates and/or those who made racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic remarks).

The RN’s rise is also territorial. We’re seeing increasingly extensive spatial continuities of Lepéniste precedence, in its now deep-rooted areas (Mediterranean arc, Hauts-de-France, Garonne valley) but also a good part of the center and east of the country. The proportion of cities where the RN is in the lead has doubled between 2022 and 2024 (exceeding 60%), and in all demographic strata, even breaking through in large cities by taking advantage of the collapse of Reconquête. Nevertheless, the RN vote remains correlated with population density, and decreases as commune size increases.

The maps of results (in percentage terms) for each party in Q2 shows a much more balanced geography for the RN, which ensures a minimum level of performance in the majority of departments, while the other blocs experience significant areas of weakness (the ENS map is thus very fragmented, while that of the NFP shows its difficulties in the northern half, with the notable quantitative exceptions of the Paris region and extended Brittany). The RN, even when it loses, achieves at least 40% in 157 constituencies, demonstrating both its strength and the mobilizing force of the Republican Front. The overall map of T2 visually highlights the benefits of the Republican front for the Macronist party.

Finally, the RN’s progression is also characterized by the diversification of its social roots, with no socio-professional category now inaccessible to it, as reflected in its penetration of several civil service categories. Level of education remains the most predictive variable for the RN vote.

Combined with the efforts made by elected representatives and spokespeople to raise their profile and gain respect, and their ability to polarize the issues at stake in public debate, these factors are significantly changing the status of this political offering and, at the same time, the reasons for voting for it. A number of studies have shown how, in certain areas, the RN vote has become the new norm, and even the norm of respectability, and how, far from a purely protest-based logic, it has aroused support and appetence, with a centrality of racism (of which RN voters do not have a monopoly, but which is more active in their electoral choices, see Faury, 2024). Since the Sarkozy period, we have observed possible ideological, programmatic and discursive fluidities between part of the right and the far right. In inter-partisan competition, the balance of power once in favor of the UMP now seems to be in favor of the RN. While individual crossings have always existed, they have become less rare. Lastly, while the Ciottist split did not have a major numerical impact, it did open up the possibility of an alliance with the RN. While Jordan Bardella’s rise to power within the party was not called into question by the relative failure of the legislative elections, the question of right-wing union is once again at the heart of the dynamics of an ongoing political recomposition.

Indeed, another lesson of these legislative elections is that, while the RN has strengthened, it nevertheless remains in the minority, in the sense that there is a majority of voters who do not wish to entrust it with power. The RN won a third of the vote in each round (i.e. 19% of registered voters), which puts it in the lead but does not give it a majority. A fully proportional electoral system would have increased his number of elected representatives, but would not have given it a governing majority in the Assembly.

A weakened central bloc and a resilient but divided left

While all parties are gaining votes as a result of the rise in turnout, the trends in relative share (graph) are reversed between the blocks that are gaining (far-right and left) and those that are falling (Macronist and right). The maps of the leading party at Q1 in 2022 and 2024 clearly show the extension of RN black and the reflux of Macronist yellow, with NFP red fleshing out Nupes’ areas of strength.

The NFP deputies re-elected in Q1 (20 LFI, 5 PS, 4 Écologistes, 2 PCF) are all, with one exception, in metropolitan constituencies, and even the majority (23 out of 31) in the Paris region. The T2 maps show that, while the NFP outperforms in urban centers, its successes are not strictly confined to them either, as evidenced by its presence in the south-west near Spain, the Massif Central, certain areas of Brittany and the Rhône Valley. In terms of trends, however, the RN’s vigorous advance in towns with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants is penalizing the left, which is twice as far ahead in these areas as it was in 2022, and only becomes dominant above this threshold, while reinforcing its overwhelming dominance in towns with over 100,000 inhabitants, where Macronism is in decline. In contrast to the dynamics of the RN, the left’s success is correlated with increasing population density. In the image of France’s communal structure ⁴ , the electoral map of the left is based on smaller but much more densely populated spatial areas. This structure, which may be advantageous for a national constituency election such as the presidential election, is more penalizing for legislative elections, as in the case of this left-wing alliance, which will make progress in 2022 as in 2024 but will not reach 30%, and which has the largest number of deputies but is a hundred seats away from an absolute majority. The spatial dimension, and therefore inextricably linked to the social groups that parties address, is more than ever on the programmatic agenda of the various components of the left, in France as elsewhere, as shown by recent studies on the strategic dilemmas of social-democratic parties in 6 European countries, which highlight that their competitors are primarily to be found among the left (ecologists, radical left), particularly in the segment of young, graduate voters (Abou-Chadi et al., 2024).

A political field still in the process of recomposition

On the one hand, the legislative elections of 2024 seem to confirm the electoral tripartition and parliamentary tripolarization, which takes the form of an absolute majority in 2017, a relative majority in 2022 and an elusive majority in 2024. But they also confirm that the recomposition that began in 2017 is still in motion, and that its stabilization remains uncertain; in the absence of powerful political parties capable of bringing together, with a degree of transversality, a diversity of social groups (and even fractions of groups) and a range of political and social preferences (a capacity on which the dominance of both the PS and the UMP, and with them a form of bipolarization, has been based, with strong local roots), the supposed three blocs remain marked by heterogeneity ⁵ , fragmentation, all in a system of nested elections in which the presidential election remains over-determinative. At parliamentary level, the legislative elections confirmed a tripolarization which, now almost equally divided, complicates political agreements and risks fostering decision-making paralysis and governmental instability, while the revelation of a budget deficit two points higher than published forecasts strongly politicizes the Finance Act, highlighting the variety of options and disagreements on public policy. Significantly, in the autumn of 2024, several months after the legislative elections, struggles over the interpretation of the results were still raging. Clearly, the elections had failed to produce either a dominant political line or governing room for manoeuvre. Following the refusal of the President of the Republic to appoint a Prime Minister from the coalition with the most MPs (the NFP), the first government of the 17th legislature was headed by a member of LR (whose party won 5% of the vote in T2, the group having 47 elected members), allied with the central bloc and attempting to govern with the RN’s non-participating support, in anticipation of a censure considered inevitable (and which was not avoided), the protagonists projecting themselves towards a possible new dissolution the following summer, while mobilizations for the conquest of the Elysée Palace have openly begun.

The elections of 2024, even more than those of 2022, (re)highlighted the fundamentally parliamentary mechanisms of the Fifth Republic, sharply accentuating the tug-of-war between the repoliticization of a Parliament whose political forces are still recomposing themselves and the persistent presidentialist tropism of this political system, which always makes the next presidential election the horizon of calculations and the matrix of strategies and exchanges of blows. While the Fifth Republic has long shown a “presidential power encumbered by its strength” (Roussellier, 2019), the legislative elections of 2024 reminded us that this strength fundamentally presupposes a parliamentary majority , all the more so as the situation of minority government following the dissolution revealed the low level of appropriation in France of the practice of legislative compromises.

The data

First round

Second round

References

Abou-Chadi, T., Häusermann, S., Mitteregger, R., Mosimann, N., & Wagner, M. (2024). Trade-offs of social democratic party strategy in a pluralized issue space: a conjoint analysis. World Politics.

Faury, F. (2024). Des électeurs ordinaires. Enquête sur la normalisation de l’extrême-droite. Seuil.

Roussellier, N. (2019). Un pouvoir présidentiel encombré de sa force. In M. Foucault, M. Fulla, & M. Lazar (Eds.), La V^e démystifiée (pp. 9–26). Presses de Sciences Po.

Taiclet, A. F., & Delaporte, A. (2023). From stronghold to marginal constituency: the case of the 18th arrondissement in Paris, French Politics, 21, 398–418.

1. Article 12 of the Constitution stipulates that the first round of legislative elections must be held within 20 to 40 days of the date of dissolution, which is therefore decisive.
2. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has invoked Article 49-3 on 23 occasions without her government being overthrown, notably because LR MPs did not support the motions of censure.
3. Source: French Electoral Survey – 7th wave, August 2024. Ipsos survey for Le Monde, Fondation Jean Jaurès, Cevipof and Institut Montaigne.
4. According to INSEE, rural areas account for 88% of communes but 33% of the population, while the 12% of urban communes account for 2/3 of the population.
5. This is particularly true of the left in large cities with a diverse social composition. See, e.g., Taiclet & Delaporte (2023).