An exit poll suggests Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally have fallen short in the French parliamentary election, in what our Europe correspondent Adam Parsons describes as an “absolute shock”. They had been in the lead after the first round of voting earlier this month.
While the headline news may centre around the National Rally’s spectacular slip to third in this election (according to the exit poll at least), it’s easy to lose track of the wider implications of this vote.
Based on this evening’s exit poll, France is facing a huge degree of political and legislative uncertainty.
A party needs 289 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly to have a majority.
Here are the current exit poll projections…
As you can see, none of the parties – left, centre or right – are expected to command a majority come the end of the vote-counting.
What does that mean?
In short, it means a hung parliament.
Our Europe correspondent Adam Parsons explains: “The French parliament will be split between three factions.
“The biggest, but well short of an absolute majority, will be a left-wing coalition called the New Popular Front.
“The centrist group, coalesced behind President Emmanuel Macron, has defied all predictions to come second.
“And the Rassemblement National, the party predicted to be the biggest by just about everyone, stumbled home in third.
“There is widespread loathing in all directions, which makes the prospect of coalitions hard to gauge.”
Le Pen and Macron in Paris in 2022Reuters
PM offers to resign in wake of split
The lack of a definitive majority from any party led to the offer of resignation from the French prime minister earlier this evening.
Gabriel Attal – who belongs to President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble party – followed Republican tradition and offered to resign his position in the morning.
That came “even though we had three times better results” than expected.
It’s been suggested that President Macron will ask him to stay in place, at least until the parliamentary picture becomes more clear.
State of presidency not crystal clear
The left and centre may have rallied to stop the surging far-right – but none of the big players outside of Emmanuel Macron’s coalition has backed him since the exit poll was released.
In fact, both Marine Le Pen of the right and Jean-Luc Melenchon of the left called on Mr Macron to resign his position.
A reminder that there isn’t a constitutional need for the president to call for an election on his position until 2027 – but both the left and right will try their best to pile pressure on Mr Macron to call one early.
That being said, some experts think that his gamble to call this parliamentary election has actually paid off.
His party have given up between 40 and 50 seats according to the exit poll, with the far-left appearing to sweep up many of those – but crucially limiting the progress of the surging right before it became unmanageable or could gain a majority.
What remains to be seen is whether he can actually build a broad-based coalition encompassing a diverse parliament.
Emmanuel Macron smiles after voting earlier todayReuters
Markets nervous and euro falls
The uncertainty has also been felt economically, with the euro taking a hit as the exit poll dropped.
Analysts interviewed by Reuters said the markets would likely be relieved that Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) was forecast to come third, but there are still nerves about the prospect of the left leading the hung parliament.
“The economic programme of the left is in many ways much more problematic than that of the right, and while the left will not be able to govern on their own, the outlook for French public finances deteriorates further with these results,” said Nordea chief market analyst Jan von Gerich.
