French elections: far right on course for first round victory. What happens now?

Rassemblement National supporters react to a speech by Marine Le Pen in Henin-Beaumont, northern France on 30 June. Photograph: François Lo Presti/AFP/Getty Images

The National Rally (RN) has won 34% of the popular vote in the first round of France’s snap two-round general election, according to early estimates, with the leftwing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance on 28%-29% and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Together bloc on 20%-22%.

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 – where a lot can, and will, happen. While pollsters issue seat estimates, 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, and the 2024 election looks as if it will be no exception.

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 very nearly 70% of registered voters casting a ballot on Sunday, voters in a record number of constituencies could, in principle, face a three-way race on 7 July, according to polling – perhaps as many as half of all seats in the assembly. The pollster Ipsos on Sunday forecast between 285 and 315 three-way contests.

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 to determine whose candidate 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, however, has been far less clear about what its candidates would do in a similar position. The president and party leaders have called both rival camps “extreme” – in the case of NFP, largely because it is dominated by LFI. Some Together candidates seem likely not to step aside for candidates 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, this situation is highly uncertain and will remain fluid until the actual candidates running in the second round become clear. The extent of inter-party cooperation will be critical – but so too will be voters’ willingness to vote tactically.