France election highlights: Leftists win most seats, but no party wins majority

Mélenchon has long been a figure on the left, first in the Socialist Party and as a senator. He founded the hard-left France Unbowed party in 2016 but failed to reach the presidential runoff in 2017 and 2022. He then allied his party with the Socialists, Communists and greens to form the New Popular Ecological and Social Union.

Mélenchon is a divisive figure who angers many moderates. The alliance fell into disarray because of divisions over the Hamas-Israel war. The France Unbowed party condemned the conduct of Israel’s war against Hamas and accused it of pursuing genocide against Palestinians. Party leaders denied antisemitism.

Then last month, Mélenchon’s party joined a similar alliance that was quickly thrown together for snap elections in response to the prospect of the far right gaining power. The alliance had more luck this time, winning the largest number of seats.

Here’s a look at the final results from the second round. According to the Interior Ministry, the leftist coalition has taken the most seats in parliament, with at least 181. Macron’s centrists have more than 160 seats. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally have 143 seats after leading in the first round.

No majority for anyone. The unpopular Macron will have to form alliances to run the government.

Many voters decided that keeping the far right from power was more important than anything else.

Correction: This post has been updated to remove exact seat tallies reported by French media to account for the fact that official results don’t give precise totals for each main bloc.

“Our country is facing an unprecedented political situation and is preparing to welcome the world in a few weeks.” That’s from Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who plans to offer his resignation on Monday.

The weakened Macron could seek a deal with the moderate left to create a joint government, but France has no tradition of this kind of arrangement. A deal could take the form of a loose, informal alliance that likely would be fragile. And already, leaders of the leftist New Popular Front are pushing Macron to give their alliance the first chance to form a government and propose a prime minister to share power with him.

If he can’t make a deal, Macron could name a government of experts unaffiliated with political parties to handle the day-to-day work of keeping one of Europe’s largest countries running. But that would require parliamentary approval. And the first session with new members of the 577-seat National Assembly is July 18.

Meanwhile, no clear figure has emerged as a possible prime minister. Macron’s office has said he would wait for the new National Assembly to take shape before taking “the necessary decisions.”

▶ Read more about what’s next

Midnight has passed in mainland France. Welcome to a new day. We await the final election results.

Speaking of suspense, a glance at the Paris Olympics countdown clock shows less than 19 days until the opening.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen says France will be “totally deadlocked” with three groups of similar size in the National Assembly and none with a majority. But she says her National Rally party will be in a position to have a majority “maybe in a year.”

Sunday’s events have been a jolt for the party that hours ago seemed poised to make history by putting the far right in power for the first time since World War II.

Meanwhile, Le Pen is expected to run for president again in 2027. Macron can’t run again, but he has vowed to stay in office until the end of his term.

It’s been more than three hours since the first polling projections and a large crowd is still gathered in the Place de la Republique in Paris. A small number of people have climbed the large monument there and a few are waving flags. There have been fireworks.

They had just days to come together. The leaders of France’s left-wing parties have acknowledged they made compromises to unite in an effort to keep the far-right National Rally party from taking power in France.

The coalition calls itself the New Popular Front, named after a similar coalition formed in the 1930s against the rise of fascism in France. It includes environmentalist parties, the French Socialists and Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed party.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the leaders of the alliance’s four main parties promised unwavering support for Ukraine. They also promised to reverse a law that raised the retirement age from 62 to 64, raise the minimum wage, adjust salaries and pensions with the inflation rate, and freeze food and energy prices to boost people’s purchasing power.

▶ Read more about the New Popular Front

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal says he will turn in his resignation. This comes after projections show a leftist coalition has surged to the lead in legislative elections. But Attal says he will remain in the post during the Paris Olympics and for as long as needed.

The polling projections show that no party has won an outright majority. There likely will be weeks of intense political negotiations to choose a new prime minister and form a government. France’s president risks being forced to share power with a prime minister opposed to his pro-business, pro-European Union policies.

Attal became France’s youngest prime minister earlier this year.

There are growing crowds at République plaza, where the French left traditionally gathers. It erupted in cheers after surprise projections showed a leftist coalition ahead in legislative elections and the far right in third.

The leftist coalition quickly formed in response to speculation that the far-right, anti-immigration National Rally would surge to a historic victory. It could have meant the formation of France’s first far-right government since World War II.

“It’s important that France, one of the founders of the EU, doesn’t have a bad image in the world, the image of a country led by populists,” said Marie Lippini, a 24-year-old student from Aix-en-Provence.

Here’s the first comment from Macron. His office says he’s going to “wait” to make decisions on a new government.

The National Assembly is scheduled to gather in full session for the first time on July 18.

The statement says Macron will ensure the “sovereign choice of the French people will be respected.”

Just minutes ago, Jordan Bardella with the far-right National Rally was thought to be in position to become France’s youngest prime minister. Now the 28-year-old is still claiming historic gains for the party after surprise polling projections put the far right in third place.

In a somber speech, Bardella is blaming Macron for “pushing France into uncertainty and instability.”

He also denounced the political maneuvering that led the National Rally to fall far short of expectations, though it still increased its seat count in parliament to an unprecedented high.

An unprecedented number of candidates who qualified for the runoff stepped aside to allow an opponent to go head-to-head with the National Rally candidate, increasing the chances of defeating them.

The timing of France’s leap into the political unknown could hardly be worse: With the Paris Olympics opening in less than three weeks, the country will be grappling with domestic instability when the eyes of the world are upon it.

The speech by leftist leader Mélenchon is an indication of what’s ahead. He says he will not negotiate with Macron, and Macron has refused to negotiate with him.

Who will lead the government? There is no deadline to form a new one. There could be weeks of discussions ahead. Macron faces the prospect of leading the country alongside a prime minister opposed to most of his domestic policies.

The sharp polarization of French politics is sure to complicate any coalition-building effort. And any cobbled-together majority risks being vulnerable to no-confidence votes that could cause it to fall.

This is uncharted territory for France. Unlike other countries in Europe that are more accustomed to coalition governments, France doesn’t have a tradition of lawmakers from rival political camps coming together to form a working majority.

Leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls the results an “immense relief for a majority of people in our country.” He wants the prime minister to resign.

Mélenchon is the most prominent of the leftist leaders who unexpectedly came together ahead of the two-round elections to keep the far right from power. Polling projections have put the leftist coalition in front, followed by President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance and the far right in third.

The lack of majority for any single alliance has plunged France into political and economic turmoil.

Final results are not expected until late Sunday or early Monday. The deeply unpopular Macron has lost control of parliament, according to the projections. The far right National Rally drastically increased the number of seats it holds in parliament but fell far short of expectations.

France now faces the prospect of weeks of political machinations to determine who will be prime minister and lead the National Assembly. And Macron faces the prospect of leading the country alongside a prime minister opposed to most of his domestic policies.

The first projections say French leftists have won most seats in legislative elections. The surprise projections put President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance in second and the far right in third.

Republique plaza, where supporters of the left were gathered, has erupted into cheers.

▶ While we wait for the first projections, here’s a look at the possible election outcomes.

One hour to go before polls close everywhere. We should have the first polling projections then.

In a sign of the uncertainty, far-right National Rally party leader Jordan Bardella won’t be speaking publicly for at least an hour after polls close. Marine Le Pen’s address is set for two hours after the initial results. Both spoke within minutes of polls closing in the first round.

Some big-name stores in Paris are protecting their windows in case of unrest as results come out, but that’s a pretty common precaution.

The captain of France’s national team, Kylian Mbappé, had urged young people to vote and warned against “extremes” at a time when the far right seeks to take power in the parliamentary elections. He didn’t name any politicians or parties by name.

“We are a generation that can make a difference. We can see that the extremes are knocking on the door of power, and we have the opportunity to shape the future of our country,” he said while France prepares to play Spain in the Euro 2024 semifinals on Tuesday.

Teammates Marcus Thuram and Ousmane Dembélé have also expressed strong opinions about domestic politics and the need to vote.

▶ Read more about Mbappe’s comments

Macron is meeting with leaders from his weakened majority alliance before polls close. An aide to the president says Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is there. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.

Many of Macron’s centrist political allies are furious at his decision to call the surprise elections just three weeks after the far-right National Rally trounced his party in European elections. They fear the centrist coalition will be wiped out in favor of the far right and left.

Some French youth are astonished by the number of people supporting the far-right National Rally.

Nawel Marrouchi is 15 and wishes she was old enough to vote. “As a binational, I am directly concerned,” the French-Moroccan said in Paris. She fears racism will gain even more ground: “In my class, one guy said once that foreigners shouldn’t get housing. But my father was an immigrant. They should go to these countries to understand why they are coming here.”

Jessica Saada is 31 and says “I think young people have not woken up yet. They don’t realize.” She is baffled by the party’s past and present positions on issues like wearing a headscarf in public: “It’s just going to cause problems and bring more hate.” Even if the anti-immigration party doesn’t win a majority in parliament, she believes the damage is done.

With three hours to go before polls close, here’s the latest figure on the turnout: 59.71%. It’s the highest turnout since 1981 at this time in the voting day. The overall turnout is on track to be the highest in four decades.

In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, a pro-independence Indigenous Kanak candidate has won a seat in France’s parliament over a loyalist candidate in the second round of voting.

Emmanuel Tjibaou is a political novice and a son of a well-known Kanak independence leader, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who was assassinated in 1989. He is the first pro-independence candidate to win a seat in the National Assembly since 1986.

Indigenous Kanaks have long sought to break free from France, which took the archipelago in 1853. Polls closed earlier in New Caledonia because of a curfew imposed in response to the violence that flared last month, leaving nine people dead. There was anger over an attempt to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists, which Indigenous Kanaks feared would further marginalize them.

Right-wing candidate and French loyalist Nicolas Metzdorf has won New Caledonia’s second parliament seat.

▶ Read more about New Caledonia

Le Pen planted herself in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont in the early 2000s, hoping to win over disenchanted voters feeling left behind by the new economy. It was the start of a decade-long effort to detoxify her anti-immigration National Rally and win over voters from across French society.

Although France has some of the highest standards of living in the world, lower unemployment than it’s had in decades and a relatively low crime rate, discontent has simmered in some areas in the post-industrial era. For many National Rally voters, last Sunday’s victory is revenge on a political class that they see as out of touch with everyday people and their concerns including crime, purchasing power and immigration.

Henin-Beaumont is where Le Pen began to turn her father’s party from political pariah to a voter-friendly alternative. She sought to replicate that strategy on the national level when she took the reins of the party in 2012.

▶ Read more about Le Pen’s early success in Henin-Beaumont.

More than a dozen reports issued in the past year point to an intensifying effort from Russia to undermine France, particularly the upcoming Olympic Games, and President Emmanuel Macron, who is one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters in Europe.

Some of those campaigns include photos of blood-red hands on a Holocaust memorial. Caskets at the Eiffel Tower. A fake French military recruitment drive calling for soldiers in Ukraine, and major French news sites improbably registered in an obscure Pacific territory, population 15,000.

▶ Read more on how the elections and Olympics have sent these disinformation campaigns into overdrive.

Opposition parties made hurried deals to try to block a landslide victory for Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in the second round of legislative elections, as she said her party would lead the government only if it won an absolute majority — or close to it.

An unprecedented number of candidates who qualified for round two from the left-wing alliance of the New Popular Front and from President Emmanuel Macron’s weakened centrists have stepped aside to favor the candidate most likely to win against a National Rally opponent.

According to a count by French newspaper Le Monde, some 218 candidates who were eligible to compete in the second round have pulled out. Of those, 130 were on the left, and 82 came from the Macron-led centrist alliance Ensemble.

▶ Read more about how the parties responded to round 1 of voting.

French President Emmanuel Macron has voted in high-stakes legislative elections that could force him to share power with the rising far right.

Macron called the surprise vote after the anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally made huge gains in the June 9 European elections, taking a huge gamble that French voters would block the far-right party as they always have in the past.

But the National Rally instead won a larger share than ever in the first round on June 30, and its leader Marine Le Pen called on voters to give the party an absolute majority in Round 2.

Sunday’s vote determines which party controls the National Assembly and who will be prime minister. If no party wins an absolute majority, forming a government comes only after extensive negotiations.

As of noon local time, turnout was at 26.63%, according to France’s interior ministry. That’s slightly higher than the 25.90% reported at the same time during the first round of voting last Sunday.

Voters at a Paris polling station were acutely aware of the elections’ far-reaching consequences for France and beyond.

“The individual freedoms, tolerance and respect for others is what at stake today,” said Thomas Bertrand, a 45-year-old voter who works in advertising.

He voted at a school where, as at all French schools, the national motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” was displayed prominently.

Pierre Lubin, a 45-year-old business manager, was worried about whether the elections would produce an effective government.

“This is a concern for us,” Lubin said. “Will it be a technical government or a coalition government made up of (different) political forces?”

Even with the outcome still in doubt, Valerie Dodeman, a 55-year-old legal expert, said she is pessimistic about the future of France.

“No matter what happens, I think this election will leave people disgruntled on all sides,” Dodeman said.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has cast his ballot in the Paris suburb of Vanves.

Macron is expected to vote later in the seaside town of La Touquet, while Le Pen is not voting after winning her district in northern France outright last week. Across France, 76 candidates secured seats in the first round, including 39 from Le Pen’s National Rally, 32 from the leftist New Popular Front alliance, and two candidates from Macron’s centrist list.

At just 28 years old, Jordan Bardella has helped make the far-right National Rally the strongest political force in France. And now he could become the country’s youngest prime minister.

After voters propelled Marine Le Pen’s National Rally to a strong lead in the first round of snap legislative elections, Bardella turned to rallying supporters to hand their party an absolute majority in the decisive second round that would allow the anti-immigration, nationalist party to run the government, with Bardella at the helm.

Bardella is part of a generation of young people who joined the party under Marine Le Pen in the 2010s but likely wouldn’t have done so under her father.

▶ Read more about Jordan Bardella

Voting has opened in France for the second round of high-stake legislative elections that have already seen the largest gains ever for the country’s far-right National Rally party.

French President Emmanuel Macron took a huge gamble in dissolving parliament and calling for the elections after his centrists were trounced in European elections on June 9. The first round on June 30 saw the largest gains ever for the anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen. Sunday’s vote determines which party controls the National Assembly and who will be prime minister.

If support is further eroded for Macron’s weak centrist majority, he will be forced to share power with parties opposed to most of his pro-business, pro-European Union policies.

The second-round voting began Saturday in France’s overseas territories from the South Pacific to the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and North Atlantic. The elections wrap up Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) in mainland France. Initial polling projections are expected Sunday night, with early official results expected late Sunday and early Monday.

French voters face a decisive choice in the runoff of snap parliamentary elections that could see the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation — or no majority emerging at all.

Official results suggest Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, nationalist party National Rally stands a good chance of winning a majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time, but the outcome remains uncertain amid the complex voting system and political tactics.

▶ Read more on what to expect from today’s election.