Paris France – France is preparing to go to the polls again for a second round of voting for the National Assembly.
Following his party's defeat by the far-right in the recent European Parliament vote, President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament and called two rounds of early elections.
In the first, the far-right National Rally (RN) party emerged victorious with more than 29 percent of the votes.
Protests have spread across the country again as demonstrators call for voters to come out and vote on Sunday against the party formerly known as the National Front.
On Wednesday in Paris, people marched from the Place de la Republique to the headquarters of the National Rally in the French capital.
“The atmosphere is very dramatic and intense,” said Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London. “It is an atmosphere of mobilisation by all those who do not want the National Rally to obtain a majority or even win the elections.”
Macron's Renaissance party won just 20 percent of the vote in the first round. A coalition of left-wing parties, called the New Popular Front, won 28 percent more. The coalition aims to unite voters against the nationalist, anti-immigrant RN party led by Marine Le Pen.
Danielle Barron moved to France from the United States more than 20 years ago, just after Jacques Chirac defeated Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine's father, in a presidential runoff.
His children were born in France and the family obtained French citizenship four years ago. Barron has voted in France ever since.
“I emigrated to France six months after 2002. [US] “I came to an election full of hope and convinced that I was fleeing a broken democracy, rooted in institutionalized racism and rapidly heading towards a far-right regime. I never imagined that 22 years later, I would face the same fears in my adopted country,” Barron told Al Jazeera.
Although the first round results were not surprising, left-wing voters are worried about running out of options against the RN.
“Mobilizing the left, forming a coalition and getting more votes is no longer enough. The far right won, which is a bit depressing,” Baptiste Colin, a 29-year-old theatre producer from Lyon, told Al Jazeera. “I am still happy to see the Popular Front and the parties that have joined forces or the candidates that have won.” [stepped down] “so as not to split the vote.”
Turnout in the first round was high: almost 68%, compared to 47.5% in the 2022 parliamentary elections. More than 70 candidates who obtained a majority were directly elected in the first round. The others face a second round with the two or three parties with the most votes in each constituency.
“Against the National Rally, it is time for a large, clearly democratic and republican alliance for the second round,” Macron said in a statement after the results of the first round.
But many of those supporting Macron's Renaissance party are unwilling to back a Popular Front candidate in the runoff, even with the president's party falling behind.
“Macron voters could determine the election. They have the opportunity to block the RN, but I am worried that it is too late and that Macron voters are not ready to vote for the left. There is still rhetoric that equates the left with the far right in terms of extremist policies,” Colin said.
In the second round, the centre could join with the existing left-wing coalition so that there are no three-way races that divide the non-RN vote.
“Withdrawals are essential. Without withdrawals, if there are three candidates, voters do not vote strategically. Voters tend to remain loyal to their candidate,” Marliere said. “But it is not about voting for an opponent. It is about using that vote to defeat the National Rally.”
“When you give power to the far right, you never know when they will give it back to you”
Although the results of the first round do not allow us to predict the final distribution of the 577 vacant parliamentary seats, the RN seems on track to win a relative majority in the National Assembly. Such a result would bring the far-right party to electoral power for the first time in French history, 80 years after the collaborationist Vichy regime made an alliance with the Nazis in wartime.
“We have never been so close to a party financed by xenophobia and racism, with links to Nazi collaborators from its very beginning, coming to power. This second round is crucial because it will set the course of this country for years to come, or even for the next generation,” Rim-Sarah Alouane, a French researcher in comparative law at Toulouse Capitole University, told Al Jazeera.
“I am not exaggerating when I say that the very foundations of our Republic are on very shaky ground,” he said. “The far right is not a normal party. When you give power to the far right, you never know when they will give it back to you.”
If the RN wins an absolute majority, Le Pen's protégé Jordan Bardella could become prime minister.
With Bardella's help, the far right has secured a significant share of young voters: 25 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for the RN in the first round, according to a recent poll, more than double the number two years ago.
“There is a lot of hype around RN. Bardella is young and on TikTok, and there is this idea that it is fashionable to vote for RN, whereas before it was considered old-fashioned,” Colin said.
Daniel Szabo, a 48-year-old Franco-Hungarian professor of English literature and translation in Brittany, says: “People are not even voting for the candidate. They are voting for Bardella as prime minister, hoping that their vote will enable him to secure an absolute majority. But most of the local candidates are not good.”
Locally, Szabo noted that the far right was growing in this election cycle.
“Britain has always been more open and has voted less for the RN,” she says. “But for the first time, the RN has come out on top in many constituencies. I think it is Macron’s fault. He has been too arrogant. He is very intelligent, but he has not done a good job.”
In France, the prime minister guides the domestic agenda, meaning Bardella could have ample opportunity to translate much of the RN's hardline agenda into policy.
“They would be able to pass virtually any type of legislation,” Marliere said.
Some of Bardella's proposals include denying convicts access to public housing, halting free medical treatment for undocumented immigrants except in emergencies, ending automatic citizenship rights at age 18 for children born in France to non-French parents and cutting France's contributions to the European Union by 2 billion euros ($2.16 billion).
“The RN is making all the promises people want to hear with the easy political trick of blaming immigrants, especially Arab immigrants,” Szabo said.
Ondine Debre, 44, who divides her time between the Loire Valley and Paris, said she was worried about the state of the country if the RN achieved anything close to a majority.
“Many people in France doubted that the far right could come to power, but now we realise that many people do not feel heard in the current political system. I hope that left and centre parties will realise this too. We need cohesive humanist and democratic values,” she said. “RN is a threat to many civil liberties, not only for multinational citizens, but for all French people.”
