France: National Rally leads as polls close in French elections

Polling stations have closed across France, and exit poll projections are out. The National Rally is leading with 34% of the votes. The Popular Front follows with 28.1%, ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc in the third spot with 20.3%.

The full results are as follows:

• The National Rally and allies: 33%
• The New Popular Front: 28.5%
• Together: 22%
• Republicans: 10.5%
• Others (miscellaneous, various ecologists, regionalists): 2%
• Far left (Lutte Ouvrière and others): 1.5%
• Various left and dissidents New Popular Front: 1.5%
• Winback: 0.5%
• Various sovereignists and Far Right: 0.5%

Participation in this first round was estimated at 67.5% at 8 p.m., a notable figure compared to 47.51% in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections. This participation rate is the highest ever seen since the first round of elections. legislative elections of 1981, where it attained 70.9%. Remark that the 1986 election, which took place using one-round proportional representation, had an even higher participation with 78.5%.