French National Assembly Elections, 06/30-07/07

[Antonio the Sixth]

The campaign is officially over, so nothing to expect from today in terms of news. By tomorrow noon we will get the first turnout data, then another update in the mid afternoon, and polls will close at 8pm. Brace yourselves, everyone.

In the meantime, Jaichind posted the chart but here's a simple average of the final polls by the 7 pollsters who looked at the race (field dates ranging between 06/25 and 06/28). Changes shown in parentheses are from 2022 legislatives, while those in brackets are from 2024 EU.

RN+Ciottists: 36.1% (+17.4) [+4.7]
Misc. Far-right: 1.6% (-3.7) [-5.8]

Popular Front: 28.4% (+2.7) [-3.2]
Misc. Left: 1.2% (-2.5) [+0.9]
Far-left: 1% (-0.2) [+0.3]

Macronismo: 20.2% (-6.4) [+5.6]
Misc. Center: 0.7% (-0.5) [+0.7]

LR+DVD: 8.3% (-4.5) [+1]

Others: 2.6% (-2.2) [-4.2]

Turnout: 65.2% (+17.7) [+13.7], leading to an effective qualification threshold of 19.2%

[Epaminondas]

Some cross-stats on life satisfaction vs. voting intention



Macron's party has captured satisfied voters, Rassemblement vote propensity is directly proportional to dissatisfaction.

[Sorenroy]

I am NOT doing a similar map for the right, because again I don't hate myself that much, but if someone wants to take a look, the data is here: https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2024/06/19/qui-sont-les-candidats-aux-elections-legislatives-2024-decouvrez-la-liste-circonscription-par-circonscription_6241357_4355770.html

List of candidates has been released: https://www.resultats-elections.interieur.gouv.fr/legislatives2024/

Far-Right Seat Distribution
National Rally — 503*
Union of the Extreme Right — 66*
Reconquest — 2
France Arise — 1
Unclear — 2
Uncontested  — 3

Far-Right Candidates Contested by The Republicans
National Rally — 270
Union of the Extreme Right — 34*
Unclear — 1
Uncontested  — 272


This was a mess. As far as I can tell from the hours I've spent scouring the web for resources regarding France's far-right coalition, this post constitutes the first full examination of where the Republicans are challenging the RN/LR alliance. Part of the issue is that Le Monde's list is heavily editorialized and absolutely riddled with errors. For example, candidates are listed as "divers" despite the Ministry of the Interior and the parties themselves listing them as members; candidates are listed as members of political parties despite the Ministry of the Interior listing them as "divers" and the candidates themselves distancing from any political party label; candidates are mislabeled altogether, with some Ciotti-aligned Republicans listed as National Rally members and vice versa; the "dissident" modifier seems to be given to candidates at random with most Republicans listed under the LR label but with some singled out for no clear reason. Perhaps the worst example of this is Var's fourth constituency, where the candidate for the Republicans - Michel Rezk - was deemed ineligible to run by the Constitutional Council, something easily Googled by looking up his name and reflected in his lack of appearance on the Ministry of the Interior's list. Yet Le Monde has somehow gone out of their way to get this wrong, listing him as the candidate for the Republicans in the district.

There are times when the differences between Le Monde's list and that of the Ministry of the Interior make sense. For example, when the Ministry of the Interior does not account for a party investing a specific candidate or when one of the parties suspend their support for a candidate for various reasons. But, even here, this is not done consistently. As such, using Le Monde as a database for accurate, up-to-date candidate affiliations ended up producing more issues than it resolved. In the end, I had to double-check every race against the Ministry of the Interior to try and get a better sense of what the seat distributions looked like.

So here's what this map actually represents: this is a map of how the far right distributed their seats and where - by the list given by the Ministry of the Interior - there is or is not a "Les Républicains" listed candidate. In many constituencies, there is a center-right candidate, sometimes even running with the support of the Republicans, but that is not what this map seeks to represent. This is a map of where the Republicans were able to rebuild themselves and field a candidate specifically running under their label in the timeline between Ciotti's betrayal and the filing cutoff. There will always be an opportunity for center-right candidates to run under minor party labels or as miscellaneous candidates. This is an opportunity to see what has become of France's established center-right in a time of far-right upheaval and change.

Some other notes:

• There are six seats (three each for the National Rally and Ciotti's Republicans) where the Ministry of the Interior incorrectly lists the candidates as not-party affiliated when they are. In these six cases, I researched who the candidates had been invested by and used that instead of the incorrect "divers" or other labels.
• France Arise (Debout la France) and Reconquest (Reconquête) are not actually members of the Union of the Extreme Right (often fielding candidates against the National Rally, Ciotti's Republicans, and eachother) and are only listed for seats where the Union of the Extreme Right have not fielded a candidate. For France Arise, that singular seat is Essonne-08, the only "metropolitan" seat in all of European France where both the National Rally and Ciotti's Republicans are absent. While the argument could be made that this was a failure of candidate recruitment, I find that hard to believe that the only seat they failed to file for out of all 539 constituencies just so happened to be Nicolas Dupont-Aignan's, the leader and only seat-holder of the France Arise party and a far-right supporter of Le Pen. For the two Reconquest seats, both are from overseas constituencies, where there was a legitimate failure to field candidates. I did go through the other folks running to see if any of them were incorrectly listed as "divers" while actually being associated with RN or LR, but was unable to find any information indicating as such.
• There are two constituencies where it is unclear who - if anyone - is the far-right candidate. In the eighth French Overseas Constituency, no candidate is labeled by either the Ministry of the Interior or Le Monde as being a member of the National Rally or Ciotti's Republicans. However, there are two separate candidates both running as Republicans: incumbent Meyer Habib and challenger Aurelie Assouline. I have read conflicting articles on whether or not Habib has chosen to align himself with the Union of the Extreme Right or not. Most articles agree that he disagreed with Ciotti's initial decision, but differ on whether he later acquiesced or not. Either way, this is a race with both a far-right (if not Habib, then Reconquest's Guillaume Bensoussan) and center-right (if Not Habib, then the Republicans' Aurelie Assouline) candidate. In French-Polynesia-03, the question is much easier, but still with no clear answer. There is no "Les Républicains" labeled candidate, only local parties and "divers." In a recent article recapping the debate between the five candidates running, at least two of them signaled some level of interest in joining the National Rally if elected. To me, if a candidate is publicly saying they're willing to join a party as extreme as the National Rally in the French Assembly, that's good enough to throw them on the list. However, none of the candidates in this constituency are invested by the major parties and thus are not part of any group's list. If you don't count this seat as having a far-right curious candidate, then it becomes the fourth uncontested seat for the far-right in this election.

I've thrown the Overseas Constituencies behind a spoiler as they are even more of a mess than mainland France. Of France's 27 overseas constituencies, the National Rally has fielded candidates in 21 constituencies (three opposed by listed Republicans). Of the other six, three are fully uncontested, two lack RN/LR candidates but do have Reconquest candidates, and one is unclear (explained above). Colors are consistent with the main map, except the three unopposed seats which I've shown in yellow (indicating no far-right candidate, only center-right at best).

Spoiler alert: Overseas Constituencies

Show

French Polynesia 01 — James Heaux (RN)
French Polynesia 02 — Tutu Tetuanui (RN)
French Polynesia 03 — Pascale Haiti Flosse (DVD)
Guadeloupe 01 — Tarius Royer (RN) vs. Rudy Fiacre Faro (LR)
Guadeloupe 02 — Laurent Petit (RN)
Guadeloupe 03 — Rody Tolassy (RN)
Guadeloupe 04 — Lydie Marie Monthouël (RN)
Guiana 01 — Olivier Taoumi (RN)
Guiana 02  — N/A
Martinique 01 — Cédric Crampon (RN)
Martinique 02 — Juvénal Remir (RN)
Martinique 03 — Max Ferraty (RN)
Martinique 04 — Grégory Michel Roy-Larentry (RN)
Mayotte 01 — Aurélia Maillard (REC)
Mayotte 02 — Anchya Bamana (RN) vs. Mansour Kamardine (LR)
New Caledonia 01 — Simon Loueckhote (RN)
New Caledonia 02  — N/A
Réunion 01 — Jean-Jacques Morel (RN) vs. René-Paul Victoria (LR)
Réunion 02 — Christelle Begue (RN)
Réunion 03 — Joseph Riviere (RN)
Réunion 04 — Jonathan Riviere (RN)
Réunion 05 — Joan Doro (RN)
Réunion 06 — Valérie Legros (RN)
Réunion 07 — Jean-Luc Poudroux (RN)
Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin 01 — Clément Chapdelaine (REC)
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 01 — Patricia Chagnon (RN)
Wallis and Futuna  — N/A

I've spent a good chunk of my life over the past 10 days since Antonio posted his NFP map working on this, so I hope its at least interesting. I also created a spreadsheet for this information, where I've noted the UXD party, if there is a challenger from the Republicans, and included any notes where the Ministry of the Interior differed from Le Monde or for anything else that seemed interesting. All information was double-checked (at least) and I did what I could research-wise when differences did occur. There are lots of other interesting tidbits too that don't fit naturally in this post that I'd be happy to share if people are curious too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Impressive work! I could tell it would be more work than I was willing to spend on it, but I'm glad someone took the time. You even went further to double-check Le Monde's classifications, which I was hoping would be reasonably accurate, but apparently I shouldn't have. Welp. That's going to make it even more of a hassle to actually assess the results tomorrow.

[jaichind]

To keep it simple for me can I assume that if I look at

https://www.resultats-elections.interieur.gouv.fr/legislatives2024/

Any candidate that has ENS, REN, MDM, HOR, or UDI is ENS bloc
Any candidate that has  UG, FI, SOC, VEC, or COM is NFP bloc
Any candidate that has RN, or UXD is RN bloc

And any district can have at most one from each bloc (making each one of them a true alliance)

[VPH]

For somebody with more knowledge of French history than me, what explains PS' strength in the southwest corner around Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, and Haute-Garonne?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"Emmanuel Macron has done well by France", claims the Economist.

The thing is, however, most French people don't agree.

And ultimately in a democracy, the electorate is always right (even when, as on occasion, it is wrong)

Are Indians right regarding Congress having appeased favoured disadvantages castes and muslims for too long ? and the need to construct a new national identity on the basis of hindu nationalism ?. Are Americans right that the Biden administration hasn't been tough enough on asylum seekers, deporting illegal immigrants and that crime is at record highs(against the actual data showing it has fallen) ?


The primary political phenomena of the last 20 years has seen people voting less on concrete data and reality; and more on less tangible things like culture and identity. It's quite right to point out that the data disagrees with what a lot of people feel is happening. I'm a strong believer in democracy; ultimately the people deserve to choose how they are governed but that doesn't mean we have to pretend that people feelings are objective data or thy every choice they make is rational.

The reasons most French voters have turned so strongly against Macron are material, though. Some syphilitic demagogue can pretty easily convince people that the imminent threat of the Muslim Honduran invaders or whatever will destroy their way of life in some abstract, truthy way, yes, but if people are claiming en masse that their standard of living has gotten noticeably and specifically lower, they generally have good reason to be making that claim.

[MillennialModerate]

I know little about the French system….

Why have a million different little parties? Seems confusing as hell.

And is the Prime Minister in France akin to the US Speaker? Seems like it. Does the President of France play any role in legislation?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

snip

Thank you for your hard work.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Turnout at noon was 25.9%, the highest since at least 1997. At least people are taking the vote seriously this time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

One last infodump before we start getting actual results. A while back I determined which constituencies were the best "bellwethers" in terms of matching the overall results of metropolitan France (based on the 2012, 2017 and 2022 presidential elections). It turns out the following 10 constituencies were the closest, so if you find one of those that finishes counting early, it might give you a good indication of national trends. Here's a bunch of data about them.


Côte-d'Or - 2

2022 Leg Results: NUPES 29 (48), ENS 27 (52), RN 21, LR 11

2024 EU Results: EXD 37, FP 31, ENS 14, LR 8

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Claire Rocher (LO)
- Catherine Hervieu (FP-EELV)
- Julien Gonzalez (misc. Eco.)
- Benoit Bordat (ENS-Ren)*
- Laurent Bourguignat (LR)
- Elisabeth Bertrand (misc. Sov.)
- Tatiana Guyenot (RN)
- Franck Gaillard (Rec)



Drôme - 1

2022 Leg Results: NUPES 28 (46), ENS 20 (54), LR 19, RN 16

2024 EU Results: FP 35, EXD 35, ENS 14, LR 8

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Adèle Kopff (LO)
- Paul Christophle (FP-PS)
- Mireille Clapot (ENS-Ren)*
- Véronique Pugeat (LR)
- Jean-Paul Vallon (RN)
- Thierry Aoustet (Rec)



Indre-et-Loire - 4

2022 Leg Results: ENS 30 (51), NUPES 30 (49), RN 20, LR 10

2024 EU Results: EXD 35, FP 32, ENS 16, LR 7

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Kevin Gardeau (LO)
- Laurent Baumel (FP-PS)
- Fabienne Colboc (ENS-Ren)*
- Sophie Lagree (LR)
- Jean-François Bellanger (RN)



Isère - 9

2022 Leg Results: NUPES 31 (46), ENS 30 (54), RN 19, LR 12

2024 EU Results: EXD 36, FP 34, ENS 15, LR 6

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Emma Vassal (Far-left)
- Claude Detroyat (LO)
- Sandrine Nosbé (FP-FI)
- Gaelle Offranc Piret (misc. Eco.)
- Valentin Radlo (misc.)
- Elodie Jacquier-Laforge (ENS-MoDem)*
- Héloïse Baradel (LR)
- Cécile Bene (RN)
- Salvador Vero (Rec)



Loir-et-Cher - 1

2022 Leg Results: ENS 32 (56), NUPES 24 (44), RN 22, LR 7

2024 EU Results: EXD 37, FP 31, ENS 16, LR 7

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Alain Lombard (LO)
- Reda Belkadi (FP-exFI)
- François Dassonneville (misc.)
- Jean-Marc Tran (misc.)
- Marc Fesneau (ENS-MoDem)
- Gildas Vieira (misc. Ctr.)
- Pierre-Gilles Parra (LR)
- Marine Bardet (RN)



Loiret - 2

2022 Leg Results: ENS 29 (56), NUPES 25 (44), RN 19, LR 12

2024 EU Results: EXD 36, FP 31, ENS 16, LR 8

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Farida Megdoud (LO)
- Emmanuel Duplessy (FP-G.s)
- Yann Chaillou (misc. Left)
- Ahmed Aachboun (misc. Left)
- Bruno Carrani (misc. Eco.)
- Caroline Janvier (ENS-Ren)*
- Cyril Colas (LR)
- Elodie Babin (RN)
- Marie-Odile Duvillard (Rec)



Loiret - 6

2022 Leg Results: ENS 32 (57), NUPES 26 (43), RN 20, LR 10

2024 EU Results: EXD 35, FP 32, ENS 16, LR 7

2024 Leg Candidates:
- David Choquel (LO)
- Christophe Lavialle (FP-PS)
- Richard Ramos (ENS-MoDem)*
- Jean-Luc Poisson (LR)
- Annie Berthault-Korzhyk (misc. Sov.)
- Anthony Zeller (RN)
- Isabelle Lamarque (Rec)



Saône-et-Loire - 1

2022 Leg Results: ENS 36 (57), NUPES 28 (43), RN 19, LR 7

2024 EU Results: EXD 37, FP 30, ENS 16, LR 8

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Christophe Springaux (LO)
- Jean-Luc Delpeuch (FP-EELV)
- Benjamin Dirx (ENS-Ren)*
- Jean-Philippe Belville (LR)
- Jean-Armand Roy (DLF)
- Rachel Drevet (RN)



Essonne - 3

2022 Leg Results: NUPES 29 (49), ENS 26 (51), RN 18, LR 11

2024 EU Results: EXD 35, FP 33, ENS 15, LR 7

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Joëlle Lopes-Venot (LO)
- Steevy Gustave (FP-EELV)
- Catherine Bompard (misc. Eco.)
- Salvador Ribeiro (misc.)
- Alexis Izard (ENS-Ren)*
- Stefan Milosevic (RN)
- Denis Tranier (Rec)



Val-d'Oise - 1

2022 Leg Results: NUPES 28 (47), ENS 24 (53), RN 21, LR 12

2024 EU Results: EXD 37, FP 33, ENS 13, LR 7

2024 Leg Candidates:
- Ethel Soussi (Far-left)
- Barbara Géhan (LO)
- Maximillien Jules-Arthur (FP-FI)
- Sami Lah (misc.)
- Emilie Chandler (ENS-Ren)*
- Michel Richard (LR)
- Lionel Lessaint (DLF)
- Anne Sicard (RN)
- Laure de Garils (Rec)

[Mike88]

Turnout at noon was 25.9%, the highest since at least 1997. At least people are taking the vote seriously this time.

Just for comparison:

Turnout update, 12pm:

2024: 25.90% (+7.47%)
2022: 18.43%
2017: 19.24%
2012: 21.06%
2007: 22.56%
2002: 19.70%
1997: 22.74%

[jaichind]

Turnout at noon was 25.9%, the highest since at least 1997. At least people are taking the vote seriously this time.

Just for comparison:

Turnout update, 12pm:

2024: 25.90% (+7.47%)
2022: 18.43%
2017: 19.24%
2012: 21.06%
2007: 22.56%
2002: 19.70%
1997: 22.74%

Sounds like good news for ENS to make it into the 2nd round in a lot of seats.

[adma]

Maybe like US 2020: a lot of "the future of the country's at stake here" electoral thinking behind the heavy turnout...

[Oryxslayer]

Maybe like US 2020: a lot of "the future of the country's at stake here" electoral thinking behind the heavy turnout...

I mean that very well could be the case, but remember that this is an unusual contest. For a long time the legislative elections have followed right after the presidential ones. This has suppressed turnout: everyone knows the outcome in advance so defeated voters opposed to the presidential victor see little reason to cast a useless vote. This contest though is untethered an therefore uncertain.  

The three legislative contests that then led to cohabitation all had high relative turnout,  especially when compared to what came afterwards. 1997 is the most recent point of comparison in that regard.  And this election could certainly produce change,  but whether that is a new cohabitation or something even more confusing and new will be decided today by how many candidates from each block advance to next week.

[Oryxslayer]

Sidenote: it's a shame the Tour is still in Italy today. It would have been rather interesting to see how and in what ways the national election would force it's recognition and presence into the international contest.

[TheTide]

Maybe like US 2020: a lot of "the future of the country's at stake here" electoral thinking behind the heavy turnout...

No restrictions on social activities to boost turnout though (i.e. people voting because there's not much else to do).

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1807408870374948973

[warandwar]

Sidenote: it's a shame the Tour is still in Italy today. It would have been rather interesting to see how and in what ways the national election would force it's recognition and presence into the international contest.

Their stage on the 7th will be in a very rural area with a bunch of gravel roads, in Aube, all held by the right (2 RN and one LR).

[Mike88]

Turnout update, 5pm:

2024: 59.39% (+19.97%)
2022: 39.42%
2017: 40.75%
2012: 48.31%

[Logical]

If turnout breaks 70% then ~18% of the vote is enough to reach the second round. We might even see some quadranglar elections.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Very high turnout probably favours Macron, perhaps his gamble to ask voters if they really want the far-right in government might pay off.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Turnout update, 5pm:

2024: 59.39% (+19.97%)
2022: 39.42%
2017: 40.75%
2012: 48.31%

Already higher than the final turnout figure of any election since 2007. At this point we should definitely get to the mid-60s and possibly the high 60s. So lots and lots of triangulaires.

[Logical]

Harris/Toluna projects final turnout will stand at 69,7%.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If turnout breaks 70% then ~18% of the vote is enough to reach the second round. We might even see some quadranglar elections.

...or even quadrangulars, yeah. In constituencies with a strong LR incumbent but sizable bases for the three main blocs, that's conceivable.