The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is the only party capable of winning an absolute majority in France's legislative elections, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said Wednesday, July 3, urging voters to block their rise to power. Attal admitted four days ahead of the polls that many French voters would have to hold their nose and vote for parties that they do not support in order to take control of the government.
The RN dominated the first round of polls, presenting the party of Marine Le Pen with the prospect of forming the government and her protege Jordan Bardella, 28, taking the post of premier in a tense "cohabitation" with President Emmanuel Macron. But over 200 candidates from the left and the center this week dropped out of three-way races in the second round of the contest, sacrificing their hopes to prevent the RN from winning the seat.
"There is one bloc that is able to have an absolute majority [in the Assemblée Nationale] and it's the far right," Attal told France Inter radio. "On Sunday evening, what's at stake in the second round is to do everything so that the extreme right does not have an absolute majority," he added.
"It is not nice for some French to have to block (...) by using a vote that they did not want to," he said. "I say it's our responsibility to do this," he added.
An absolute majority of 289 seats is needed in the 577-seat chamber for a party to form a government on its own. But Le Pen has said that the RN will try if it gets any more than 270 seats by winning over other deputies.
"At the end of this second round, either power will be in the hands of a far-right government, or power will be in Parliament. I am fighting for this second scenario," said Attal.
One option that is the subject of increasing media attention is the possibility that rather than a far-right government France could be ruled by a broad coalition of pro-Macron centrists, the traditional right, Socialists and Greens. But Attal was non-committal: "I did not speak about a coalition. I do not want to impose on the French a coalition that they did not choose."
Former prime minister Edouard Philippe, still an influential voice in the pro-Macron camp, told TF1 he would be voting for a Communist candidate to stop the far right. He said that after the election he would support a new parliamentary majority that could span "conservative right to the social democrats" but not include the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI).
His comments were also echoed by Xavier Bertrand, a heavyweight rightwinger who served as a minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy. He called for a "provisional government" focused on "rebuilding" France. "The only thing that is possible is to understand that there are alternatives other than a majority with an RN government or a backroom coalition," he told TF1.
Le Pen meanwhile angrily denounced the tactical moves and alliances. "The political class is giving an increasingly grotesque image of itself," she wrote on X.
Macron has kept his distance from the final phase of voting, which will reveal the outcome of his election gamble that baffled even close colleagues. He has not spoken in public since an EU summit on Thursday. Speaking to a cabinet meeting, he said there was "no question" that a post-election coalition could include the LFI, a participant told Agence France-Presse.