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

[Logical]

Harris/Toluna

RN+UXD : 37% (+2)
NFP : 27% (+1)
Macronista : 20% (-1)
LR : 7% (+1)
REC : 2% (-1)

Seats

RN+UXD : 230-275
NFP : 150-180
Macronista : 85-130
LR : 30-50
Souveranists : 0-2
Others : 10-20

[President Johnson]

It would actually be hilarious if the left won a majority.

[jaichind]

https://www.leparisien.fr/politique/legislatives-derniere-semaine-de-campagne-avant-le-premier-tour-suivez-notre-direct-24-06-2024-QJXS6E233ND75AGRLKHROBJENI.php?at_creation=Le%20Parisien&at_campaign#148ffa38-42a7-4d11-aa9a-3471f54367d7

Mélenchon says that if NFP wins the election then the PM will be from LFI. 

[warandwar]

Rafael Glucksmann tweets:

C’est désormais clair et net : Jean-Luc Mélenchon ne sera pas Premier Ministre vu que tous les autres partis s’y opposent. On peut maintenant se concentrer sur le véritable enjeu qui est d’empêcher que Jordan Bardella le soit, lui? Car cette hypothèse est très réaliste, elle.

In other words there is a popular front within the popular front against the pro-Putin crackpot Melenchon

Glucksman is Melanchon's mirror in terms of self-promotion and ego, whatever you think of Melanchon this is silly stuff to be talking about less than a week before an election

[Epaminondas]

Voting is open for French voters abroad: https://votefae.diplomatie.gouv.fr/pages/identification.htm

[Antonio the Sixth]

In a few minutes, we will have the first debate of the campaign. It'll be Attal vs Bardella vs Bompard from FI (there will be two more debates where the left will be represented by Faure and Tondelier, so each major party willl have its day).

[Antonio the Sixth]

So far I can't imagine it changing anyone's mind. They're constantly talking over each other, which means no one really has a chance to come off well. I'm actually surprised as French debates are usually a lot more structured, but this time the moderators seem asleep at the wheel or sometimes actually contribute to the chaos by cutting people off.

[EastAnglianLefty]

To what extent does the gerrymander originally intended from the constituency boundaries hold up at all, and who benefits?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

It'll be Attal vs Bardella vs Bompard from FI

A very young trio. All of them below 40. A stark contrast with US politics.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, it's over. No real stand-out moment for anyone. Attal and Bardella really interrupted and talked over each other as well as Bompard, who was surprisingly the most well-behaved of the three. If anything he was a bit downbeat compared to the others and might have left less of an impression, though ultimately I doubt it would matter. Moderation was pretty awful frankly. They didn't really do anything to rein in the debate but still continually interrupted the speakers.

I have much higher hopes for the France 2 debate with Faure later in the week, though either way I don't think these exercises convince many voters.

[Antonio the Sixth]

To what extent does the gerrymander originally intended from the constituency boundaries hold up at all, and who benefits?

The effect was fairly marginal in the first place, and given how much politics have realigned I doubt it has any discernible effect anymore. However, looking at the EU results, RN does seem to have a geographic advantage compared to the Popular Front. As this map shows, RN was ahead of the left-wing total in 311 constituencies vs 258, despite the fact that they both polled around 31.5%. This is likely due to the left-wing vote being increasingly concentrated in big cities, where they can easily rack up over 50%. It remains to be seen if this will turn out to be true in a parliamentary election with more locally implanted candidates.

[Hash]

Just voted online a few minutes ago. Unlike in 2022 and some elections before that, there were no charming random candidates to throw my first vote to, and the NFP's candidate was not from LFI (I'd never vote for a LFI candidate in the first round), so I voted NFP.

Of course in this constituency it's really only between macronismo and the left, with the former probably slightly favoured.

[Zinneke]

Rafael Glucksmann tweets:

C’est désormais clair et net : Jean-Luc Mélenchon ne sera pas Premier Ministre vu que tous les autres partis s’y opposent. On peut maintenant se concentrer sur le véritable enjeu qui est d’empêcher que Jordan Bardella le soit, lui? Car cette hypothèse est très réaliste, elle.

In other words there is a popular front within the popular front against the pro-Putin crackpot Melenchon

Glucksman is Melanchon's mirror in terms of self-promotion and ego, whatever you think of Melanchon this is silly stuff to be talking about less than a week before an election

Laughable statement. Glucksmann could have easily gone to this election on his own towing the "LFI is as bad as RN" line with the sole purpose of consolidating the PS-PP-DVG as being ahead of LFI and other cranks and positioning himself as the leader of "the left". Mélenchon has basically spent the past 15 years focusing solely on destroying the PS for similar egomaniac reasons, just to be well positioned for the "useful vote" in the Presidency.

I don't particularly like Glucksmann, because he is a caricature of the Parisian elite, and also fully on board the #NAFO endless-war-with-Russia-stans but he's self-aware of this more than a lot of similar types and here he has played a team game.

Another note in these endless squabbles on the Left : Quattenens has launched another broadside on Ruffin, who himself said Mélenchon was an obstacle to NFP unity

https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/politique/article/legislatives-quatennens-charge-violemment-ruffin-qui-critique-melenchon-sur-tf1_236010.html

Like I predicted, you will never have a real popular front when you have an egomaniac-Strasserite in your ranks.

[Antonio the Sixth]

and also fully on board the #NAFO endless-war-with-Russia-stan.

What a silly thing to say. Glucksmann is right to insist on unflinching defense of Ukraine as a non-negotiable point, and you should be happy that he prevailed over Mélenchon &co to impose this line in the Popular Front program.

[Zinneke]

and also fully on board the #NAFO endless-war-with-Russia-stan.

What a silly thing to say. Glucksmann is right to insist on unflinching defense of Ukraine as a non-negotiable point, and you should be happy that he prevailed over Mélenchon &co to impose this line in the Popular Front program.

In brief words : Im for a total commitment to Ukraine, but your Glucksmanns and Sikorskis of the previous Europarliament were basically full on "let's poke the Russian bear as much possible to see if we get as big a reaction as possible". It becomes caricatural. It's also in Europe's interests to have a settled security architecture Vis a vis Russia, but then Sikorski and Glucksmann are pro-EU or pro-their political sponsors? Difficult to tell sometimes.

Tdlr they are for total annihilation of Russia which is unrealistic.

[Antonio the Sixth]

and also fully on board the #NAFO endless-war-with-Russia-stan.

What a silly thing to say. Glucksmann is right to insist on unflinching defense of Ukraine as a non-negotiable point, and you should be happy that he prevailed over Mélenchon &co to impose this line in the Popular Front program.

In brief words : Im for a total commitment to Ukraine, but your Glucksmanns and Sikorskis of the previous Europarliament were basically full on "let's poke the Russian bear as much possible to see if we get as big a reaction as possible". It becomes caricatural. It's also in Europe's interests to have a settled security architecture Vis a vis Russia, but then Sikorski and Glucksmann are pro-EU or pro-their political sponsors? Difficult to tell sometimes.

Tdlr they are for total annihilation of Russia which is unrealistic.

I've never heard Glucksmann call for the total annihilation of Russia or anything like that so I have no idea what you're basing this on. I am in favor of removing all the ridiculous red lines on weapons delivery/usage and giving Ukraine everything they need to win short of nukes. If Biden had taken that attitude from the start Ukraine wouldn't be stuck in this quagmire.

[Zinneke]

and also fully on board the #NAFO endless-war-with-Russia-stan.

What a silly thing to say. Glucksmann is right to insist on unflinching defense of Ukraine as a non-negotiable point, and you should be happy that he prevailed over Mélenchon &co to impose this line in the Popular Front program.

In brief words : Im for a total commitment to Ukraine, but your Glucksmanns and Sikorskis of the previous Europarliament were basically full on "let's poke the Russian bear as much possible to see if we get as big a reaction as possible". It becomes caricatural. It's also in Europe's interests to have a settled security architecture Vis a vis Russia, but then Sikorski and Glucksmann are pro-EU or pro-their political sponsors? Difficult to tell sometimes.

Tdlr they are for total annihilation of Russia which is unrealistic.

I've never heard Glucksmann call for the total annihilation of Russia or anything like that so I have no idea what you're basing this on. I am in favor of removing all the ridiculous red lines on weapons delivery/usage and giving Ukraine everything they need to win short of nukes. If Biden had taken that attitude from the start Ukraine wouldn't be stuck in this quagmire.

I'm also in favour of this and am totally critical of the US "measured" policy as well as the EU needing Boris Johnson of all people to hold their hand through the initial phases when we needed a much more robust responses than the usual "deeply concerned" press releases.

I am just saying that Glucksmann and Sikorski and some others who are vehemently anti-Russian don't necessarily have a very mature position.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Again, without a specific example I have no idea what you're talking about. From all I've heard Glucksmann's position seems extremely mature to me.

[Hash]

I've done a very rough, imprecise general prediction. This is less meant to be a constituency-by-constituency prediction (although it kind of ended up being that) but more a general ballpark figure for each party. It was done quickly, mistakes are likely, and I'm probably unable to convincingly defend my calls on specific seats. There's a huge amount of uncertainty in doing this exercise before the first round, and there's bound to be a lot of differences between different people.

I didn't use any fancy 'models' or algorithms like the kids do nowadays, but instead looked at each constituency, quickly, without much detailed thinking, and based largely on 2024 EP results, 2022 results and candidates. I was, on balance, more generous towards the RN, based on the polls, the assumption that the election will be more 'nationalized' and local factors less important and the high likelihoods of triangulaires in many places (and an assumption that, like in 2022, transfers to block the RN will be poor).

I ended up with:
RN+Chiottista fash: 239
NFP: 176 (includes the dvg-LIOT/PS dissidents officially supported by NFP)
ENS: 98
LR: 40
REG: 9
DVD: 8
DVG: 4
EXD: 2 (Ménard and NDA)
DVC: 1 (Serva)

Overseas are mostly complete guesses, very (too) incumbent-favourable. Also the yapms basemap sucks.



Again, this map is probably rather favourable to the RN in many of its calls. Again, there's a huge amount of uncertainty in this election because it is uncharted territory - nobody in their right mind, as recently as two years ago, would ever have predicted that the RN would stand a chance at winning 240+ seats in a two-round legislative election.

I think a RN plurality, of this size give or take 15-20 seats in either direction, is the most likely outcome.

I believe a RN absolute majority, while not the likeliest outcome, is definitely quite possible but it would require several things for it to happen. Some of these things, in my mind, include:

- the degree of resistance of LR incumbents. LR candidates in two-way runoffs in 2022, almost regardless of their opponents (left, RN or macronismo), got the best transfers in their favour, and often won by solid margins despite rather weak first round results. Will these incumbents benefit from incumbency, local factors and, in runoffs, a similar ability to get good transfers regardless of their opponent? Some of them hold seats where the RN is quite strong - Hubert Brigand (Côte-d'Or 4), Stéphane Viry (Vosges 1), the non-Chiottista LR in Alpes-Maritimes, Nicolas Forissier (Indre 2), Sylvie Bonnet and others in Loire, Yannick Neuder (Isère 7), Emmanuelle Anthoine (Drôme 4), Emmanuel Maquet (Somme 3), Pierre-Henri Dumont (Pas-de-Calais 7), those in the Orne and Oise etc. My map is generally quite kind to LR, although I do predict a fair number of them to go down to the RN, taking into account triangulaires. But to win an absolute majority, RN would need to knock off even more of them.

- the resilience of strong local incumbents, both left and right, in constituencies with huge RN votes in 'national' (EP) elections - I am thinking, on the left, of the maverick northern centre-leftists (all Nupes dissidents or skeptics) Jean-Louis Bricout, Benjamin Saint-Huile and Bertrand Petit, as well as PCF incumbents like Fabien Roussel, Nicolas Sansu and Sébastien Jumel; and, on the right, Charles de Courson, Jean-Luc Warsmann, Bertrand Pancher and Christophe Naegelen. On my map, I have been perhaps too harsh on the lefties on this list, predicting all of them will go down, and perhaps a bit too generous with some of the rightists. Basically, it'll be a test of whether local factors/candidate quality (particularly since a lot of RN candidates are, as usual, nobodies, not from the area or many shades of crackpots who post a lot about Hitler on social media) will be able to overcome a big national wave and, probably, a more nationalized election than 2022 given higher turnout likely reducing local effects. The RN needs to knock off basically all of these incumbents to win an absolute majority.

- it would also require that most third placed candidates do not withdraw from triangulaires where the RN is ahead (this will be one of the big things to follow immediately post round one: will third-placed macronista and non-LFI leftists withdraw if the RN is way ahead in the seat?), that transfers to the non-RN candidates in runoffs are mediocre (as was the case in 2022) and therefore limited anti-RN tactical voting.

A bare RN absolute majority map might look a bit like this:

[Antonio the Sixth]

Under that scenario the combined right and far-right would end up at exactly 289... Also RN+FI would definitely have a majority, which means you can't govern without one or the other. It'd be quite a psychodrama on LR's side, and well as a heck of a puzzle for Macron.

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-26/france-s-hollande-mulls-unity-government-as-his-left-bloc-creaks

"France’s Hollande Floats Unity Government as the Left Wavers"

Sounds like Hollande wants to make the scenario below a reality.

Is not the best outcome for RN is for RN to be the largest party but fall short of a majority by some distance?  Then an anti-RN grand alliance government is formed which positions RN in 2027 to be the one and only anti-incumbent and anti-status quo choice.

[Antonio the Sixth]

You're not going to get LR and FI in the same government. That's just not happening.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I don't understand why the French do "triangulaires" - surely it defeats the purpose of a runoff?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't understand why the French do "triangulaires" - surely it defeats the purpose of a runoff?

France has a very storied tradition (dating back at least to the Third Republic but possibly even earlier) of runoff elections where runoff qualification is free - indeed, at some points I think you could run in the runoff even if you didn't in the first round. The logic was that candidates who had no chance to win based on the first round would voluntarily drop out to favor their broad political family. This was a time when French politics were highly polarized between republicans, monarchists and bonapartists (and later between progressive republicans and authoritarian nationalists), so few candidates would want to hurt their side when the very nature of the French state was at stake. The Fifth Republic marked the first time that a vote threshold was required to make it to the runoff (the top-two presidential election was only introduced in 1962), so it was a fairly restrictive step for the time. I am surprised that right-wing governments never introduced a top-2 runoff in the 80s or 90s, though, given how they got screwed by triangulaires so many times.

[Battista Minola 1616]

I don't understand why the French do "triangulaires" - surely it defeats the purpose of a runoff?

France has a very storied tradition (dating back at least to the Third Republic but possibly even earlier) of runoff elections where runoff qualification is free - indeed, at some points I think you could run in the runoff even if you didn't in the first round. The logic was that candidates who had no chance to win based on the first round would voluntarily drop out to favor their broad political family. This was a time when French politics were highly polarized between republicans, monarchists and bonapartists (and later between progressive republicans and authoritarian nationalists), so few candidates would want to hurt their side when the very nature of the French state was at stake. The Fifth Republic marked the first time that a vote threshold was required to make it to the runoff (the top-two presidential election was only introduced in 1962), so it was a fairly restrictive step for the time. I am surprised that right-wing governments never introduced a top-2 runoff in the 80s or 90s, though, given how they got screwed by triangulaires so many times.

I'm not sure if it was out of inspiration from France or something else but presidential elections in Weimar Germany worked the same way - indeed, Paul von Hindenburg was not a candidate in the first round of 1925 (and of course was elected without receiving an absolute majority in the second round).