2024 French Legislative Elections

Legislative elections were held in France on 30 June and 7 July 2024 (and one day earlier for some voters outside of metropolitan France) to elect all 577 members of the 17th National Assembly of the Fifth French Republic. The election followed the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Emmanuel Macron, triggering a snap election after the National Rally (RN) made substantial gains and Macron's ''Besoin d'Europe'' electoral list lost a significant number of seats in the 2024 European Parliament election.

In the first round of the election, the National Rally and candidates jointly backed by Éric Ciotti of The Republicans (LR) led with 33.21% of the vote, followed by the parties of the New Popular Front (NFP) with 28.14%, the pro-Macron alliance Ensemble with 21.28%, and LR candidates with 6.57%, with an overall turnout of 66.71%, the highest since 1997. On the basis of these results, a record 306 constituencies were headed to three-way runoffs and 5 to four-way runoffs, but 134 NFP and 82 Ensemble candidates withdrew despite qualifying for the run-off in order to reduce the RN's chances of winning an absolute majority of seats.

In the second round, based on the Interior Ministry's candidate labeling, NFP candidates won 180 seats, with the Ensemble coalition winning 159, National Rally-supported candidates being elected to 142, and LR candidate taking 39 seats. Since no party reached the requisite 289 seats needed for a majority, the second round resulted in a hung parliament. Unofficial media classifications of candidates' affiliations may differ slightly from those used by the Ministry of Interior: according to ''Le Monde''s analysis, 182 NFP-affiliated candidates were elected, compared with 168 for Ensemble, 143 for the RN, and 45 for LR. The voter turnout for the second round, 66.63%, likewise set the record for being the highest since 1997.

Macron initially refused Gabriel Attal's resignation on 8 July, but accepted the resignation of the government on 16 July, allowing ministers to vote for the president of the National Assembly while remaining in place as a caretaker government. NFP leaders called for the appointment of a prime minister from the left, but Ensemble and LR figures advocated for an alliance and threatened that any NFP-led government including ministers from La France Insoumise (LFI) would face an immediate vote of no confidence. Post-election negotiations between NFP alliance partners exposed renewed tensions, with party leaders taking until 23 July to agree upon a name for prime minister – the 37-year-old director of finance and purchasing for the city of Paris, Lucie Castets. Macron announced a truce for making political negotiations during the 2024 Summer Olympics on 26 July to 11 August. After the truce, Macron still did not signal any intent to appoint her and called party leaders meeting in Élysée on 23 August, he finally refused to do so on 27 August, leading the NFP to announce they would not take part in further talks with Macron unless it was "to discuss forming a government".

On 5 September, Macron appointed Michel Barnier as prime minister. He presented his government on 19 September and announced on 22 September. On 1 October, Barnier presented his first speech in the National Assembly. Analysts noted that the failure of any bloc to attain support from an absolute majority of deputies could lead to institutional deadlock because any government must be able to survive motions of no confidence against them. Although Macron can call a second snap election, he is unable to do so until at least a year after the 2024 election, as stipulated by the constitution. On 9 October, Barnier survived a motion of no confidence led by 193 members of the NFP and 4 members of LIOT members support. Another motion of no confidence, led by the National Rally and the leftist coalition on 4 December, successfully ousted Barnier with 331 votes in favor.

Background

Following the 2022 legislative election, Ensemble lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly. Among the member parties of the coalition was President Emmanuel Macron's party, Renaissance (formerly La République En Marche!). Meanwhile, the two main opposition blocs, the left-wing New Ecological and Social People's Union (NUPES) and far-right National Rally (RN) made significant gains in terms of seats. Despite that, no group won the absolute majority, resulting in a hung parliament for the first time since the 1988 election. The lack of an absolute majority led to the repeated invocation of article 49.3 of the constitution in order to adopt legislation, with Élisabeth Borne doing so 23 times by December 2023.

On 9 June 2024, shortly after 21:00 CEST, Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called snap elections in a national address following projections which indicated that the L'Europe Ensemble electoral list would be significantly eclipsed by the RN in the European Parliament elections in France. In his address, he called the rise of nationalism by agitators a threat to France, Europe, and France's place in the world. He also warned that the far-right would bring about the "impoverishment of the French people and the downfall of our country." The dates of the first and second rounds of elections were set for 30 June and 7 July, respectively.

Reactions to the announcement

Politicians

RN leader Jordan Bardella called the large gap between the RN and L'Europe Ensemble electoral lists in the European Parliament elections a "stinging disavowal" of President Macron, saying that the results marked "day 1 of the post-Macron era." Marine Le Pen, president of the RN group in the National Assembly, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise, celebrated the election results and welcomed the announcement of snap elections.

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy condemned Macron, seeing his decision to dissolve parliament as a "serious risk for the country." Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo reacted extremely negatively to Macron's decision, saying that the elections posed a serious threat to the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics because they would not only "spoil the mood of the whole country" but also carry the risk of street riots and demonstrations.

Media

The decision to hold an election came as a surprise to outside observers and was widely seen as being risky for the presidential majority of Emmanuel Macron, with some suggesting that Macron wished to force a decision between the RN and their opposition and others assessing that Macron intended to win a majority, with Renaissance leader Stéphane Séjourné attempting to tempt moderate incumbents on both the left and right to join his alliance in comments made just after the dissolution was announced.

Most international media expressed deep surprise at Macron's decision, calling the snap elections a "desperate gamble." In general, Macron's decision was perceived negatively, and the prospects for his alliance's victory in the elections were assessed as low. ''La Libre Belgique'' called Macron a "wounded political animal." According to the BBC, by calling snap elections, Macron jeopardised the democracy of the Fifth Republic and risked provoking violence in the streets and institutional collapse. ''The Guardian'' considered Macron's measures an attempt to avenge his defeat in the preceding European Parliament elections, which could result in radicals coming to power and splitting the country. ''Die Zeit'' believed that Macron "lost his cool" to such an extent that he actually "gave the country to Marine Le Pen." The Greek daily newspaper ''Kathimerini'' called Macron's decision an unwise gamble that would lead to nothing good. French media raised the issue of holding the 2024 Summer Olympics in conditions of political instability.

Electoral system

The 577 members of the National Assembly, known as deputies, are elected for five years by a two-round system in single-member constituencies. A candidate who receives an absolute majority of valid votes and a vote total greater than 25% of the registered electorate is elected in the first round. If no candidate reaches this threshold, a runoff election is held between the top two candidates plus any other candidate who received a vote total greater than 12.5% of registered voters. The candidate who receives the most votes in the second round is elected.

A consequence of the 12.5% threshold was the potential for three-way runoffs, also referred to as triangular elections, in a greater number of constituencies in the second round in the event of higher turnout and diminished number of candidates, as was anticipated to be the case in 2024 relative to previous legislative elections. Such a dynamic reinforced the likelihood that higher turnout became an advantage for the National Rally, which received a clear plurality of the vote in pre-first round polls and as a result would be expected to win a greater share of seats due to the increased number of three-way races in the second round, not accounting for the possibility of candidate withdrawals.

With pre-election polls suggesting that the 2024 legislative elections would feature the highest level of turnout in decades with an exceptionally tripolarised electorate, pre-election estimates of the potential number of three-way races were also at unprecedented levels, and ultimately 306 constituencies headed to three-way runoffs and 5 to four-way runoffs, with 89 three-way and 2 four-way runoffs remaining after candidate withdrawals announced ahead of the registration deadline for the second round. This marked the first time since 1973 that four-way runoffs, also referred to as ''quadrangulaires'', were necessary in any French legislative election.

Campaign

Timeline

The two rounds of the election were held on 30 June and 7 July in metropolitan France (France, adjacent islands, Corsica), while each round took place a day earlier in France's overseas departments (Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, French Polynesia) as well as in embassies and consular posts in the Americas. Polling stations were open from 8:00 to 18:00 local time, with some open until 20:00. All media coverage in terms of candidate interviews and programmes, campaigning, and publication of public opinion polls were banned from midnight on the day before the election in (29 June and 6 July) to the closing of the last polling stations on election day.

The timeline for candidates to register for the first round of elections was from 12 June until 16 June, while the candidate registration deadline for the second round is 2 July. The official campaign, during which audio-visual and electoral regulations must be respected, began on 17 June.

For those registered on consular electoral lists, online voting for constituencies for French residents overseas ran from 25 June at 12:00 CEST to 27 June at 12:00 CEST for the first round, and from 3 July at 12:00 CEST to 4 July at 18:00 CEST for the second round. Many of those attempting to vote on 25 June reported that the voting website was unreachable due to high traffic. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs announced on 27 June that 410,000 online ballots were cast during the voting period, a new record compared to 250,000 in 2022.

The extremely short amount of time to prepare for the election posed significant logistical challenges, especially in overseas France, due to municipalities being required to cover the costs of organising the ballot by themselves in addition to the necessity of recruiting and training volunteers to run polling stations in relatively little time. In a press release, the stated that many mayors remained worried "about the ability of their communes to organise these two elections under satisfactory conditions." While monetary compensation for assessors is usually prohibited, some communes opted to ignore the electoral code given that exceptions were granted to communes under similarly "exceptional circumstances" in the past. Furthermore, the timing of the election made it impossible for candidates and parties to present enough representatives presents at polling stations, with only a tenth of those required having been nominated in Nice

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