In second-round result, the left-wing New Popular Front is projected to finish ahead of Marine Le Pen’s far-right party in French parliamentary elections, according to an IPSOS estimate.
After a markedly high turnout, the NFP – a cluster of five parties ranging from the far-left France Unbowed party to the more moderate Socialists and the Ecologists – was projected to win between 172 and 192 seats in the National Assembly, making it the largest party, but falling short of the 289 seats required to form an absolute majority.
President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance, which had slumped to a dismal third in the first round of voting last Sunday, has since recovered strongly and is projected to win between 150 and 170 seats. Despite leading after the first round of votes, the far-right National Rally (RN) was projected to win between 132 and 152 seats.
The RN’s strong showing in the first round stirred fears that France could be on the cusp of electing its first far-right government since the collaborationist Vichy regime of World War II. But Sunday’s projection comes as a huge upset and shows French voters’ overwhelming desire to keep the far right from gaining power.
After the first round, an unprecedented number of seats – over 300 – went to a three-way runoff between Ensemble, the NFP and the RN. By Tuesday, more than 200 centrist and left-wing candidates withdrew from the second round, in a bid to avoid splitting the vote.
Speaking to a crowd of his ecstatic supporters at Stalingrad square in Paris, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the firebrand leader of France Unbowed, said the results came as a “huge relief for the overwhelming majority of people in our country.”