French elections: far right wins first-round victory. What happens now?

The National Rally (RN) has won 33% of the popular vote in the first round of France’s snap two-round general election, according to final results, with the leftwing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance on 28% and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Together bloc on 21%.

A national vote share, however, is extremely difficult to translate into a projected number of seats in the assemblée nationale. That’s because the final outcome will depend on the results in the constituencies. Pollsters issue seat estimates, but France’s polling watchdog does not endorse them.

Here’s a guide to what comes next as voters gear up for the decisive second round of voting on 7 July, when France could decide to give control of its government to the far-right, anti-immigrant party for the first time in its history.

What are the rules of the two-round system?

To win one of the 577 seats in the national assembly in the first round, a candidate must get more than 50% of ballots cast, representing at least 25% of registered voters.

This happens only rarely, although the 2024 election’s high turnout has seen the number of candidates who won in the first round rise sharply to 80.

If no candidate in a constituency achieves that, the two highest scorers plus anyone else who collected at least 12.5% of total registered voters advance to a second round. In that round, the candidate who obtains the most votes is elected.

How does it usually work?

The two-round system is highly disproportionate and artificially boosts larger parties. On a turnout of 65%, for example, the 12.5% hurdle means parties would have to secure the backing of almost 20% of eligible voters to advance to the second round.

In recent legislative elections, turnout has been significantly lower than that, meaning that in almost every constituency, only two candidates have gone through to the second round and the number of three- or four-way contests has been very low.

In the 2012 elections, with a turnout of 57%, there were 34 so-called “triangular” runoffs. In 2017, when turnout was 49%, there was only one, and last time around in 2022 there were eight on a turnout of just 47%. The previous record was 76, in 1997.

What’s different about this election?

The combination of the highest turnout since the 1980s and fewer candidates – 4,011 against 6,290 in 2022 – from just three main camps (left, centre and far right) – means the second round of the 2024 ballot will feature a record number of “triangular” contests.

With 67% of registered voters casting a ballot on Sunday, voters in a huge number of constituencies could, in principle, face a three-way race on 7 July - as many as 306, according to the official results, half the seats in the assembly.

In theory, three- or four-way contests should work in favour of the party with the largest share of the vote in the first round – in these elections, generally RN – because the opposition vote is split. Many three-way contests, however, do not stay that way.

What generally happens in “triangular” contests?

Until recently, if the RN looked like winning a seat in a three-way race, the second- and third-placed parties would negotiate, at local and national level, to determine whose candidates would drop out.

To be successful, however, that strategy requires both that the mainstream parties are willing to withdraw candidates, and that voters are happy to play along, with centre-left voters backing a candidate from the centre right, and vice-versa.

But that “Republican front” has been steadily fraying, with voters increasingly unwilling to “hold their noses” and cast their ballots for parties whose policies do not necessarily align with their political preferences. In 2022, RN returned a record 89 deputies.

So what will happen this time?

As far as the parties go, senior figures in the four-party left-green NFP alliance – including the firebrand leader of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon – have promised that in all constituencies where RN is in first place and an NFP candidate is in third, the NFP candidate will withdraw.

Macron’s camp has been far less clear about what its candidates would do in a similar position, with the president and party leaders calling both rival camps “extreme” – in the case of NFP, largely because it is dominated by LFI.

The prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said on Sunday that third-placed candidates should step aside: “Not one single vote must go to the National Rally.” Some candidates from Macron’s coalition, however, may not withdraw faced with a candidate from LFI.

As far as voters go, things are even more complicated. An Ipsos poll last week found 87% NFP voters willing to cast their ballot to block RN, but only 62% of Together voters. Another poll, by Odoxa, found that fewer voters (41%) were willing to block RN than to block NFP (47%) or Together (44%).

In short, the situation is highly uncertain and will remain fluid until the actual candidates running in the second round become clear. With up to half the seats in the assembly potentially becoming three-way contests, the scope for an anti-RN “Republican front” is clearly there – but the extent of inter-party cooperation will be critical, as will be voters’ willingness to vote tactically.

• This article was amended on 1 July 2024. In an earlier version, the subheading called the National Rally by its previous name, the National Front.