French election 2024 updates: Exit polls project far right lead

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We will bring you all the latest news and analyses in the lead-up to the second round on July 7 as well as live coverage on the day.

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It was a long day for French voters, and a long week lies ahead.

• The far-right National Rally (RN) is projected to have won 34 percent in this first round of voting, according to France 2’s exit poll, followed by the left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front (NFP) with 28.1 percent. Third in the exit poll was Macron’s Ensemble party with 20.3 percent.
• Now, all eyes are on July 7 for the second round. The RN will try to win an absolute majority to run the National Assembly without needing coalition partners.
• To avoid this, Macron has called for a “broad” democratic alliance against the far right.
• Jean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the NFP, said he would withdraw candidates who have placed third in the first round of the parliamentary election.
• French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the lesson learned this evening is that the far right is at “the gates of power”, adding that “no vote should go to the National Rally”.
• France will likely have its first “cohabitation” in 22 years, meaning a president and a prime minister from two rival parties or alliances.

European markets have been rattled since Macron’s shock decision to call a snap election. The prospect of a win by either the far right or the left has unsettled investors, as both have pledged big spending increases, which could undermine France’s already fragile finances.

“With this result, markets are looking into another week of really high uncertainty – probably fear, as it is still possible for RN to gain an absolute majority next week,” Carsten Brzeski, an economist and the head of Global Head Macro Research, told Reuters.

“We will have a lot coming up in the next days in terms of new polls showing what this could mean for the individual seats,” Brzeski said.

“From the market’s point of view, a win by the leftwing bloc would have been an even worse scenario, even though from the start it was very unlikely,” he added.

“The stakes are clear: to prevent the National Rally from having an absolute majority,” the prime minister said, after French President Emmanuel Macron’s camp finished a distant third in the first round of the elections.

Laurent Berger, the former secretary-general of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour and current European Trade Union Confederation chairman, urged for the “blockade” in a post on X.

“This evening, our democracy and our republican values are at stake in the face of the National Rally on the threshold of power,” Berger said.

“In the face of danger … it is imperative to block the extreme right”.

It is a historic result. It will shake French politics to its absolute core. A realignment of French politics between essentially the far right and the forces of the left, who have united for this election.

It represents the end of the era of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance.

He will go on, of course, as president until his second term ends in 2027. But unless some miracle befalls the centrists and they’re able to rescue their party from this disaster in the next week before the second round, he will not be able to govern with a government led by a prime minister of his choosing.

Let’s get you up to speed:

• Exit polls show that Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party is ahead in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections.
• RN is projected to have won around 34 percent of the vote, which puts the party ahead of leftist and centrist rivals, including President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble alliance, whose bloc is projected to have won 20.7 percent.
• Macron called for a “broad” democratic alliance against the far right following the exit poll projections.
• Jean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, said he would withdraw candidates who have placed third in the first round of the parliamentary election.
• The president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, called the results “unprecedented” and criticised the far left for creating an “existential crisis” in a speech following the exit polls.

A spontaneous demonstration of left-wing young people has gathered in Paris’s Place de la Republique. They are chanting “everyone hates Bardella”, and anti-fascist slogans.

“They are doing it at the foot of the statue of Marianne, who symbolises the ideals and values of the French Republic, which many here feel are under threat,” reports Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull from the site of the demonstration.

Left-wing protesters have also gathered in the French city of Lyon.

Jordan Bardella accuses the far left of harbouring “unacceptable attitudes”.

He said they are calling for “more immigration” and supporting “Islamic separatist law”.

He said the far left was creating an “existential crisis” and represented “a real danger to France and all the French people”.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, has also been speaking.

He says he will withdraw candidates who have placed third in the first round of the parliamentary election, in order to defeat the highest number of far-right National Rally candidates in the second round.

“In line with our principles and our stances in all previous elections, we will never allow the National Rally to achieve victory,” said Melenchon.