France votes as far-right National Rally hopes to make history

France will vote on Sunday in a parliamentary election that could go down in history, as the far right moves closer to power than ever before in modern times.

The National Congress (RN) party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella is leading in the polls – three weeks after they won the European elections and President Emmanuel Macron has responded by calling for nationwide voting.

More than 2.6 million of France’s 49 million voters have registered to vote by proxy, a sign of the high turnout expected for such a crucial election.

This is a two-round election and most of the 577 seats in the National Assembly will not be decided until the second round of voting next Sunday.

The campaign lasted just 20 days and that also benefited the RN, which quickly improved on existing promises on immigration and unrest as well as tax cuts to tackle the cost of living crisis. .

Jordan Bardella wants to become the RN’s first prime minister and his party is confident of winning dozens of constituencies in the first round.

But he said he would only take the job if the party won an absolute majority in parliament of 289 seats. Otherwise there will be a hung and deadlocked parliament.

Immediately after the first results on Sunday evening, the National Rally rivals will have to decide who will drop out in the second round battles across France, ensuring that an absolute majority does not happen.

If the polls are accurate, a run-off election will see the National Rally Party pitted against a hastily formed left-wing coalition called the New Popular Front, which believes it could even win the election.

In previous elections, parties from across the spectrum have united to eliminate the far right, and voters have tried to do so.

But RN leaders have worked hard over the years to shed their extremist image. Besides policies that give French citizens “national incentives” for jobs and housing, they also want to cut VAT on energy and allow people under 30 to avoid income tax.

In Franconville, north of Paris, a teacher named Agnès complained about the breakdown of discipline in French schools and liked Jordan Bardella’s plan for a “great power explosion” in education. “I will vote right or far right. I like Bardella’s charisma,” she said.

She also has no problem with RN’s abolition plan power of the sunthe right to automatic French nationality for children born to foreign parents if those children have lived in France for five years – from 11 to 18 years old when they are eligible to apply for French nationality.

President Macron’s Ensemble coalition is widely expected to lose many seats, and Gabriel Attal’s days as prime minister appear to be numbered, although polls show he remains France’s most popular politician.

“The Macron era is over,” Mr. Francois Hollande declared before the vote.

Mr. Hollande, the former French president who was Mr. Macron’s boss and mentor, is running for parliament again – this time as a candidate of the New Popular Front.

However, even Macron’s allies are angry at his quick electoral gamble.

France won’t hold another election for another three years, and the country has far better ways to spend its summer than through a short and tense election campaign.

The national football team will take on Belgium in the Euro 2024 round of 16 on Monday and all of France is already preparing for the Paris Olympics which start on July 26.

Metro stations such as Concorde are closed and restrictions are in place near any Olympic venues.

The police and army were stretched thin and the Home Secretary warned of the risk of violence after the second round.

Mr Macron is expected to meet the prime minister and other members of the government on Monday to decide on his next move.

So far their spell has been “ni-ni” – does not support the RN nor the left-wing New Popular Front, because of the participation of the France Unbowed (LFI) party, which is denounced by opponents as far-left and some of its members are accused of anti-Semitism.

President Macron has said that only his Ensemble coalition has the strength to stop both the “far right and the far left”. He said the far right classifies people by their religion or origin, while the left judges them by the community they belong to.

Last week, on a hot evening in Meaux, east of Paris, one of LFI’s most senior figures, Mathilde Panot, told supporters that they were the “only remaining focal point of resistance” to the rise of the far right, accusing the Macron coalition of opening the gates of power to the RN.

“We are not extremist, what is extreme is that Mr Macron’s extreme liberalism has led to the rise of the far right,” she told the BBC.

The New Popular Front also includes more moderate parties, including the Socialists and the Greens, whose leader Marine Tondelier has called for a united stance to prevent Mr Bardella from becoming prime minister.

Some of France’s most famous young stars have urged voters to stay away from extremes, from NBA star Victor Wembanyama and soccer captain Kylian Mbappé to YouTube influencer Squeezie.

But the divisions between the parties are deep and time is extremely short for any coordinated action to stop the RN.

“I’m worried about our country,” said Aurélie, outside a market in Le Plessis Bouchard, north of Paris. She was not impressed with the nationalist policies implemented by the RN. “Patriotism is not nationalism, it is not the same.”