French elections 2024

Who will control the National Assembly?

Last updated on July 8th 2024

Final results, seats

New Popular Front

Left-wing

Ensemble

Centrist

National Rally

Hard-right

AFTER THE final round of voting in France’s legislative elections, official results show the country will have a hung parliament. Unlike polls before the vote suggested, the National Rally (RN), the hard-right party of Marine Le Pen and her 28-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella, will not be the biggest force in the lower house of parliament. After securing the biggest vote share in the first round, they have won a mere 143 seats (including their right-wing allies led by Eric Ciotti). That is far less than the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing alliance that has won 182 seats. The NFP falls short of a majority, for which 289 seats are needed. Both the hard left and the hard right have put forward an alarming slate, including foreign policies that could weaken NATO and the West as well as reckless economic reforms.
Ensemble, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition, has suffered a defeat, but has taken 168 seats. Although his alliance will only be the second biggest bloc in the 577-seat National Assembly this is a better result than polls had predicted. The remaining Republicans—who have ruled out working with the RN—have won 46 seats.

Share of vote in first round, %

2024

2022

Read more on the French election

The Economist is tracking the contest. Here you can find a breakdown of the results, analysis of what’s at stake and short guides to each group in parliament. And if you are interested in contests elsewhere, take a look at our election tracker hub.

Voting intention, %

Left
Centrist
Right

*From June 19th, including share that says they will vote for Republican candidates fielded by Eric Ciotti's side

†After June 19th, not including the Republican candidates that have said they will collaborate with the National Rally

‡From June 21st, including share that says they will vote for other independent right-wing candidates

In a bid not to split the anti-RN vote, more than 200 candidates for the NFP and Ensemble stood down in constituencies where three candidates won enough votes to make it to the final run-off in France’s two-round system. This manoeuvre, common in French elections, significantly reduced the RN’s chances of securing a majority. An estimate by the French Interior Ministry at 5pm local time suggests that 59.7% of people voted—up from 59.39% at the same time in the first round and 38.11% in 2022.
Although Mr Macron will remain president, cohabitation (where the president and government are of different political stripes) or indeed a hung parliament are likely to lead to political deadlock in France. The president will have to appoint a new prime minister. He could nominate a technocrat or politician, and one in command of a parliamentary majority, or not. New elections cannot be called for at least a year and Mr Macron’s term officially ends in 2027.

The main party groups

National Rally

Hard-right

National Rally (RN), led by Marine Le Pen, is a hard-right party and the successor to the National Front, founded by Ms Le Pen’s father. RN is a nationalist and Eurosceptic party, with a tough line on immigration. At the European Parliament elections on June 9th the RN won 30 seats whereas Mr Macron’s coalition secured just 13. Before the election, it held 88 seats in France’s National Assembly, but polls suggest it could become the biggest party after this election. A Kremlin-linked Russian bank financed some of Ms Le Pen’s previous election campaigns. The RN is opposed to Ukraine joining NATO or the EU. Ms Le Pen says she would put forward Jordan Bardella, her 28-year-old party head, as a candidate for prime minister.

New Popular Front

Left-wing

The New Popular Front (NFP) is a newly formed alliance of left-wing parties. It is made up of Socialist, Green and Communist parties as well as Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France. A similar alliance in 2022 with Mr Mélenchon as its leader was named “New Popular, Environmental and Social Union”, or NUPES. The NFP has pledged to undo Mr Macron’s pension reform, and introduce a swatch of heavy new taxes on individuals and corporations. No single candidate for the position as prime minister has yet been announced by the coalition. The left-wing alliance is currently second in the polls.

Ensemble

Centrist

Ensemble (ENS) is a coalition of centrist parties, including Mr Macron’s Renaissance party; the pro-European MoDem; Horizons, a party founded by Edouard Philippe, a former prime minister; and others. It was previously the largest group in France’s National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, holding 250 seats—it fell short of winning an absolute majority of 289 seats in the elections in 2022. Since the previous election, Mr Macron’s alliance has needed to partner with other parties to pass laws. Gabriel Attal, Mr Macron’s 35-year-old Renaissance colleague, became France’s youngest ever prime minister in January.

The Republicans

Centre-right

Eric Ciotti, head of the centre-right Republicans, is putting up more than 60 candidates in an alliance with the RN. Republicans who do not want to work with Ms Le Pen’s party instead have to stand under the banner of “the republican right”. Republicans dismayed by Mr Ciotti's alliance have tried to oust him from the party, but that was provisionally overturned in the courts. Anti-Ciotti Republicans have said they are putting up nearly 400 candidates across the country.

Reconquest

Hard-right

Reconquest is a Catholic far-right party. It was founded in 2021 by Eric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant radical. In 2022 it came fifth in the first round of the parliamentary elections. On June 12th the party expelled Marion Maréchal, its former vice-president and Ms Le Pen’s niece, for telling people to support the RN in the upcoming election.

Sources: French Interior Ministry; Ipsos/Talan; National polls; The Economist

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