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It was deathly quiet outside the Elysee Palace.

The usually prolix French President Emmanuel Macron stayed behind closed doors, no doubt licking his wounds as the scale of Marine Le Pen’s triumph over her arch-nemesis in the first round of legislative elections sunk in.

Macron at a polling station.  Photographer: Yara Nardi/AFP/Getty Images

If he had hoped that record turnount meant the French had come to their senses to rally behind him to keep the far right out, then he was proven wrong — not that the proud leader would admit to it. 

Macron has repeatedly argued that his decision to hold an early vote was the right call. But to most observers it looks rash if not downright reckless.

All he conceded tonight was a short written statement where Macron said that “confronted by the National Rally, it is time for a large, clearly democratic and republican alliance for the second round.”

Over in her constituency of Henin-Beaumont, an old coal-mining town near the border with Belgium, the 55-year-old far-right leader stretched her arms wide open, smiled broadly and told her cheering supporters that Macron’s centrist party had been “practically wiped out.” She is now gunning for an absolute majority in the second round on July 7 and if she gets it, Macron will be left with no choice but to enter into a power-sharing arrangement with her.

Le Pen said her party, the National Rally, and its allies have “virtually wiped out the Macronist bloc.” 

What Sunday night’s results showed was that a vote for Le Pen is more than just a protest vote. She has done enough to clean up the image of the party, re-branding it several times, severing ties with her father, who founded the party and dismissed the Holocaust as a “detail” of history. 

These days it’s Jean-Luc Melenchon from the far-left France Unbowed that has an antisemitism problem. The leftist alliance he’s part of with the Socialists and a handful of others didn’t have a great night. Truth be told, they have little in common other than wanting to shut out Le Pen. 

Alice Weidel, the co-leader of Germany’s right-wing AfD party, is taking notes. “I look at the result in France with admiration and respect,” Weidel told Bloomberg at the sidelines of the Alternative for Germany convention in Essen. “And of course it’s also a role model for the AfD.”

The question now is what are the run-off tactics. Macron and his allies could be trying to break up the leftist New Popular Front and pick off support there. As things stand, Le Pen is at the gates of power. 

“Have you seen this evening’s declarations, as though Mrs Le Pen and Mr Bardella were already at the highest level of the state?,” howled former president Francois Hollande. “The president seems to have been erased, the majority is in tatters.”

— Flavia Krause-Jackson

Voter turnout is at the highest level since 1997, an ominous sign for Macron. That was the year Jacques Chirac took a similar gamble and got beaten, forcing him into France’s third cohabitation.

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If Le Pen’s party gets an absolute majority, she plans to name her right-hand man Jordan Bardella as prime minister. Sharing power with someone from the opposition is known as cohabitation and it’s only ever happened three times before. He is diametrically opposed to Macron and forceful. It’s hard to imagine the two men getting on.

Who is Bardella anyway? The 28 year-old selfie lover is president of the National Rally and Le Pen’s political heir. He dropped out of university and likes to burnish his credentials by pointing to his upbringing in a poor, ethnically diverse Paris suburb. He’s helped Le Pen’s push for legitimacy by putting more distance between the party and its founder, her controversial father Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his antisemitic views.

Bardella in Paris today. Photographer: Julien de Rosa /AFP/Getty Images

It’s going to get messy. Polling company Elabe predicted 290 to 320 out of the 577 districts could have three-way races. This is a huge increase compared with the eight in the last legislative elections in 2022. Everyone will be now watching whether third-placed candidates will drop out to try to stop the far-right National Rally from winning. You can read more about this complex electoral system in this handy explainer.

Why did Macron do this? Not even his closest allies know. Many of them are angry and puzzled by his rash decision. The president himself is unrepentant. Macron's government was creaking anyway and speculation was starting to build that it could collapse in the autumn. Some analysts have suggested that if voters see how the National Rally performs in power it might reduce the chances of Le Pen claiming the presidency in 2027.

Supporters of Marine Le Pen cheer during a rally. Photographer: Francois Lo Presti/Getty Images

Which scenario is preferable? A hung parliament is likely, but an
absolute majority by National Rally is a realistic possibility, according to Bloomberg Economics’ Eleonora Mavroeidi. The main economic risk is that an RN government, emboldened by a big electoral mandate, attempts to implement a long list of ambitious and expensive policies, she writes.

Brussels is watching closely. The chaos unleashed by Macron has given some flashbacks to Brexit and of the euro crisis. The premium investors demand to hold French government bonds jumped to its highest since the dark days of 2012. France is pivotal to the European project and Macron was instrumental in making Ursula von der Leyen the president of the commission.

It’s helpful to pull the lens back to understand why Macron got himself into this mess and decided to go for broke and call a snap election. The elections for the European Parliament earlier this month showed the hard right clearly on the march. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni was a big winner. The far-right Alternative for Germany celebrated beating Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left SPD. The most dramatic drubbing came from Le Pen’s RN, which won about 32% of the vote, more than double the Macron ticket's 15%.

Francois Hollande was set to go down in the history books as the most unpopular French leader on record. Coming after “bling-bling” Nicolas Sarkozy, who was convicted in a corruption trial, he was seen as a bit dithering, boring and indecisive, a bit of a champagne Socialist who wanted to be Mr. Normal. He had all but faded out of politics but in this moment of crisis he has found his voice. He has opened the door to some kind of leftist unity government to prevent the National Rally taking power.  The “first objective” is to stop Le Pen, he said from his stronghold of Tulle, in central-southern France.

Hollande speaks in Tulle on June 30. Photographer: Pascal Lachenaud/AFP/Getty Images

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