France begins voting in election, power could fall to far right

French voters go to the polls on Sunday in the first round of a snap parliamentary election that could produce France’s first far-right government since World War II and potentially upend the heart of the European Union.

President Macron shocked the country by announcing the vote after his centrist coalition was defeated in this month’s European elections by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, the anti-European, anti-immigrant party that has long been ostracized but is now closer than ever to power.

Polls opened at 6 a.m. local time and closed at 4 p.m. in small towns and 6 p.m. in larger cities, with the first exit polls expected that evening and seat projections for the decisive runoff in a week’s time.

However, the electoral system makes it difficult to estimate the exact distribution of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, and the final results will not be known until voting closes on July 7.

“We will win an absolute majority,” Le Pen said in a newspaper interview on Wednesday, predicting her protégé Jordan Bardella, 28, will become prime minister. Her party has a high-spending economic program and seeks to reduce immigration.

If the National Front does win an outright majority, French diplomacy could be plunged into an unprecedented period of turmoil as Macron – who has said he will remain president until the end of his term in 2027 – and Bardella battle for the right to speak for France.

At a polling station in the Paris suburb of Sevres, Didier Delacroix, a 70-year-old former company director, said he was voting for Macron’s coalition.

“Otherwise it would be chaos,” he said.

France has had three periods of “coexistence” in its postwar history, with presidents and governments coming from opposing political camps, but never has the competition for the country’s highest power seen such starkly different worldviews.

Bardella has already said he will challenge Macron on global issues. France could go from being a pillar of the European Union to a thorn in its side, demanding a reduction in France’s contribution to the bloc’s budget, clashing with Brussels over European Commission jobs and overturning Macron’s calls for greater EU unity and stronger defense.

A big win for the Nationalists would also make France’s position in the war between Russia and Ukraine unclear. Le Pen has historically been pro-Russian, and while the party now says it will help Ukraine defend against a Russian invasion, it has also set red lines, such as refusing to provide long-range missiles.

Polls put the Nationalist Party well ahead with 33-36% of the popular vote, with the hastily formed left-wing coalition New Popular Front in second place with 28-31% and Macron’s centrist coalition in third place with 20-23%.

The New Popular Front includes a range of parties, from moderate center-left parties to the far-left, Eurosceptic, anti-NATO France Indomitable, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, one of Macron’s most vocal opponents.

Vincent Martini, a professor of political science at the University of Nice and the École Polytechnique in Paris, said it was difficult to predict how the poll numbers would translate into seats in the National Assembly because of the way elections work.

Candidates can be elected in the first round if they win an absolute majority of votes in their district, but this is rare. Most districts require a second round of elections in which all candidates who received at least 12.5% ​​of registered voters in the first round participate. The candidate with the most votes wins.

“If participation is high, there could be a third or fourth party that enters the fray,” Martini said. “So of course there is a risk of a split vote, which we know favours the National Rally.”

For decades, as the far right has gained support, whenever it has come close to state power, voters and parties that don’t support it have united against it, but this time may be different.

Martini said no one knew whether candidates from Macron’s camp would consider withdrawing from the second round of elections to give their left-wing opponents a chance to defeat the National Front, or vice versa.

Le Pen and Bardella have been trying to make their party’s image more mainstream, for example by denouncing anti-Semitism. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and longtime leader of the National Front’s predecessor, was openly anti-Semitic.

But critics say the National Army’s co-optation of Jews is just a pretext to allow it to deny charges of racism while continuing to stigmatize Muslims and foreigners.