Three weeks after winning the European elections by a wide margin, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) achieved a new record score in the first round of snap elections on Sunday, June 30. Bolstered by candidates nominated by Les Républicains' (LR) disputed president Eric Ciotti, Jordan Bardella's party surged in front. It garnered 33.5% of votes cast, according to initial estimates by Ipsos Talan for France Télévisions, Radio France, France24/RFI and LCP Assemblée Nationale. In detail, RN candidates obtained 30% and LR candidates supported by the RN 4%.
This score places the RN comfortably ahead of the left united under the colors of the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP, 28.1%) and French President Emmanuel Macron's outgoing majority (20.7%), which had dominated the first round of the 2022 parliamentary elections.
Never before had the far-right party, founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, broken the 20% barrier in a parliamentary election. In terms of votes, with the abstention of less than 35% of registered voters, the former Front National (FN, which became RN in 2018) will very clearly exceed its best score achieved in the first round of an election, with the 8.13 million votes gathered by Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential election.
Since June 9, when Macron surprised everyone by announcing the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale, RN leader Bardella has repeatedly stated that he would refuse to be appointed prime minister if his party did not win an absolute majority (289 seats). There is already no doubt that the far-right party will have a record number of MPs, well above the 88 that made up its group in the previous legislature.
The RN's national score in the first round of the parliamentary elections confirmed the far-right party's dominance of the political landscape, coming after the 31.4% they had achieved on June 9 in the European elections. The unpreparedness of Bardella and his troops, highlighted by this lightning campaign, did nothing to affect the momentum registered in poll after poll.
Neither the weakness of Ciotti's contribution to the alliance, nor the RN's U-turns on economic matters, nor its apparent willingness to discriminate against dual nationals to prevent their access to certain jobs appeared to have stemmed the breakthrough of Jean-Marie Le Pen's heirs, who are now closer than ever to power.