Today, the second, and final, ballot of the parliamentary elections in France takes place. After this round, it will become definitively clear what the French Parliament will look like. An exciting day for Macron: it is not certain whether he will be able to retain an absolute majority in the House of Representatives after his ‘defeat’ in the first round of elections.
A week after the first round of the French parliamentary elections, the polls will open to French voters for the last time today. From eight o’clock in the morning, the French can cast their vote. That same evening, at eight o’clock, the polls close and the results are announced.
In the first round, President Emmanuel Macron’s political bloc won by a very small majority. He obtained 25.7 percent of the vote. Its competitor, the left-wing political bloc NUPES, won 25.66 percent. The right-wing populist Marine Le Pen was a lot lower: her party ended up in third place with 18.68 percent of the vote.
Absolute majority
Today Macron takes on the left-wing opposition NUPES led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, Rassemblement National led by Marine Le Pen and the traditional right-wing party Les Republicains.
For an absolute majority in the Assemblée Nationale, the French House of Representatives, Macron must win 289 of the 577 seats. But the exit polls predict that Ensemble will win between 260 and 310 seats – so the absolute majority is not guaranteed. Without the absolute majority, Macron will have to form a new coalition and appoint new ministers. This can make it less easy for him to present bills.
How do the French parliamentary elections work?
In France, the parliament works with a district system. This means that each constituency, a total of 577, is represented in parliament by one seat. Any candidate who gets at least 12.5% of the vote in the first round will advance to the second round. In that round, the candidate with the most votes wins the election.
The voter turnout in the first round was historically low: about 52.8 percent of the French decided not to vote.