Transcription

This Sunday, July 7, saw the second round of legislative elections in France.

The polls predicted a clear victory for France's far-right Rassemblement National party.

What finally happened?

Welcome to another episode of Learn French with News.

Today we're going to talk about the legislative elections in France.

I had already done an episode on the dissolution of the National Assembly.

Here's the video just above.

And today, we're going to talk about the next logical step, the results of these legislative elections and what could happen next in France.

Don't forget that you can download the free vocabulary sheet for this video by clicking on the link in the description.

Legislative elections in France are held in two rounds.

The French vote twice. I'll explain how these elections work a little later in the video.

The first round took place on June 30, 2024.

I would also remind you that these were early legislative elections after Emmanuel Macron dissolved the Assembly.

In view of the results of the first round, estimates of the final outcome of these elections pointed to the Rassemblement National as the clear winner.

There were projections for the second round.

According to these estimates, the party led by Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen should have won between 260 and 310 seats in the National Assembly.

Many people were therefore wondering whether the Rassemblement National, or RN as it is known in France, would win an absolute majority and whether France would have a future government made up of members of this party.

An absolute majority is equal to half the seats plus one.

In France, an absolute majority is equal to 289 deputies or 289 seats.

In the end, the far-right party failed to win an absolute majority.

It's a long way from that, and doesn't even get a relative majority.

A relative majority is when you have the largest number of MPs in parliament, so you're the largest group.

Nor are they the largest group in the National Assembly.

As you can see on the screen, the final results give a small victory to the New Popular Front.

The New Popular Front is a coalition that includes most of the major left-wing parties, i.e. the Socialist Party, the Ecologists, France Insoumise and the French Communist Party.

This coalition won 180 seats.

So they have a relative majority.

In second place was the presidential camp, i.e. the party of the President of the Republic and its allies, which won 158 seats.

And in third place, the Rassemblement National and its allies also won 143 seats.

As you can see, in reality, nobody really won the election.

Overall, the National Assembly is divided into one-third, one-third, one-third.

As I said before, what surprised me was the discrepancy between the first round and the polls and the actual results of the far-right party, the RN.

There's an interesting paradox here, because in reality, the Rassemblement National won the most votes, the most electoral votes. It got 10 million.

In percentage terms, this represents 37%, but in terms of headquarters, only 25%.

In comparison, the coalition of all left-wing parties, the New Popular Front, had 6 million voters, yet won more seats.

So fewer votes, but more MPs.

This can be explained by the way elections work in France, and also by the coalitions that have been formed.

In the end, it's the number of MPs per constituency that counts, not the overall number of votes for the whole country.

I'm now going to tell you a little more about how parliamentary elections work in France, and I'll also give you more details about how these 2024 early elections will work.

Because they have a few special features.

In France, deputies are elected by direct universal suffrage.

So it's the people who vote directly.

As I said earlier, there are two rounds of voting.

To advance to the second round, candidates must obtain at least 12.5% of the vote in their constituency.

Note that if a candidate obtains more than 50% in the first round, he/she is immediately elected and there is no second round in his/her constituency.

So you can be elected in the first round.

It's a rather unusual and rare voting system.

It is not used in many countries for parliamentary elections.

As you can see from this map of the different voting systems in Europe, in general, elections are more proportional.

As I was saying, there are two rounds, and in the second round we generally end up with two or three candidates.

In some electoral districts, we even went up to four candidates.

Which is quite rare.

Something rather peculiar happened in these elections.

The main objective of the left-wing and presidential candidates was to create a blockade against the Rassemblement National.

In practical terms, what does it mean to block the extreme right?

How did they set things up to prevent Rassemblement National candidates from being elected?

It's very simple.

For example, in a constituency where, in the second round, there was a candidate from the Rassemblement National, a candidate from the left and a candidate from Emmanuel Macron's camp, either the candidate from the left or the candidate from Emmanuel Macron's camp withdrew to give the other candidate a better chance of winning against the extreme right.

This means that, for example, in the first round, a far-right candidate could come out on top in his constituency.

Normally, he should have won the second round, but thanks to the withdrawal and the transfer of votes to the other candidate, the Rassemblement National candidate was able to lose despite being the favorite.

This instruction to give way to the candidate most likely to win against the far right was applied in virtually all constituencies, with a few exceptions.

That's why the Rassemblement National has the most votes, but not the most seats.

It's thanks to these coalitions and agreements between the other parties.

Very quickly, as after every election, the various parties reacted.

As is often the case in parliamentary elections, all the parties say they've won on at least one point.

The New Popular Front, the coalition that won the most seats, of course, says it won because it has the most deputies.

This coalition is calling on Emmanuel Macron to appoint a left-wing Prime Minister who would form a left-wing government and implement the New Popular Front program.

The presidential camp, too, feels it has won a little, at least in the face of the polls, since the polls estimated they would have barely 50 seats.

In fact, they did three times as much.

It should be pointed out, however, that they have lost a third of their seats compared to the previous elections in 2022.

For the Rassemblement National, it's also a victory, at least according to them, since they obtained the highest number of votes and also because their number of seats only increases with each election.

In 2021, there will be six MPs, in 2022, 88, and in 2024, 143.

As I was saying, in reality, nobody really won.

As you can see from the diagram I'm showing you on the screen, it's more like one-third, one-third, one-third.

What does this mean on paper?

That France is potentially ungovernable.

Indeed, it may seem impossible to form a government under these conditions.

When the President appoints the Prime Minister of his choice, the latter will form his government, and usually a vote of confidence is taken in the Assembly.

So, MPs have to validate, in quotation marks, the government.

It's not compulsory, but it's generally done.

We're well aware that it would be very complicated to get the support of a majority of MPs.

Political parties will have to form alliances, coalitions and compromises to reach agreement.

And that's not usual in France.

For the presidential camp, as for the other groups in the National Assembly, it will be very complicated to obtain an absolute majority on the various votes.

Conflicts are already beginning to emerge, notably over the name of the potential future Prime Minister.

As I was saying, the New Popular Front is a coalition of various left-wing parties.

Within this popular front, the party that got the most votes was France Insoumise.

France Insoumise is represented by a person called Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

He's a rather controversial politician.

He's a political figure who's the subject of debate, and not everyone agrees with him, especially when it comes to certain positions he's taken.

Naturally, France Insoumise, which has the most MPs among this left-wing coalition, would like Jean-Luc Mélenchon to be appointed Prime Minister, but the other parts of the coalition aren't really hearing it that way.

There's another hypothesis being put forward by many political journalists and observers.

As I was saying, Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not enjoy unanimous support, even on the left.

It is therefore possible that the other parties in this coalition, i.e. the ecologists, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, will decide to withdraw from this new Popular Front and join forces with other parties such as the Presidential Party or the traditional right.

In the end, we'd have virtually all the parties joining forces and excluding Rassemblement National and France insoumise.

This coalition could have a majority in the National Assembly, which would prevent the country from coming to a standstill.

Directly after the elections, Gabriel Attal, the current Prime Minister, announced that he would hand in his resignation to Emmanuel Macron on Monday morning.

You might think that he did this after the presidential camp lost its elections, but in reality, it's a tradition for the Prime Minister to resign after a new election, a new legislative election.

And Emmanuel Macron was quick to announce that he did not accept the resignation.

Obviously, the president had the power to refuse.

He refuses to resign to ensure the country's stability.

The situation may therefore remain a little unclear over the next few days, weeks or even months.

Everything will really depend on the compromises that are made and the potential alliances that can be created.

That's it, the video is finished.

I hope you've enjoyed this political topic, enriched your vocabulary and gained a better understanding of the current situation in France.

Don't forget that you can download the vocabulary sheet from the video.

Just click on the link in the description.

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