France’s New Popular Front Coalition pulled off a stunning parliamentary election victory on Sunday, blocking Marine Le Pen’s far-right ultranationalist party, the National Rally, from overtaking the country’s government.
After a strong showing from a coalition made up of the Republican right-wing party and the National Rally in the first round of voting last week, France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal called upon candidates from President Emmanuel Macron’s party who were caught in three-way races to begin dropping out—and, quite amazingly, they did.
As a result, the New Popular Front, a four-party left-green alliance, came in first with 192 seats. Macron’s center-right alliance came in second, winning 163 seats, and Le Pen’s far-right movement came in third, winning only 143 seats. While the New Popular Front did not achieve an absolute majority, and the way forward for the government remains unclear, the surprise victory marked a rare instance of the traditional democratic alliance winning against fascism.
Across France, members of the far-right coalition were left dumbfounded as the results of the election rolled in.
A video posted to X by France 3 Rhône-Alpes showed a crowd at the National Rally headquarters in Rhône, where onlookers eagerly counted down to the results—and then couldn’t hide their abject disappointment when they realized they had lost. In the murmur of the crowd, a word favored by the French, “impossible!” can be heard.
Réaction au QG du Rassemblement national du Rhône à l'annonce des résultats des #legislatives2024 #RN Notre live = https://t.co/itgb6fnial pic.twitter.com/V2sKqHtMVD
— France 3 Rhône-Alpes (@F3Rhone_Alpes) July 7, 2024
At an election-night party in Bois de Vincennes, journalist Alison Tassin captured far-right activists who looked more than a little displeased to see the shocking election results.
Soirée électorale du RN au bois de Vincennes : des militants à la mine déconfite qui s’attendaient à tout sauf à la gauche en tête @LCI @TF1Info pic.twitter.com/Q9nIQrdGhx
— Alison Tassin (@AlisonTassin) July 7, 2024
Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the far-left La France Insoumise party in Paris’s Place Stalingrad, journalist Maxime Dubernet captured the inverse of far-right distress: leftist triumph.
Explosion de joie à Stalingrad au QG des Insoumis. pic.twitter.com/IADGTjyXKs
— Maxime Dubernet (@MaxDubernet) July 7, 2024
French television network BMFTV put reactions from the two camps side by side: the overjoyed La France Insoumise on the left and the dejected National Rally on the right.
Résultats législatives: explosion de joie au rassemblement de La France insoumise après l'annonce des premières projections pic.twitter.com/hZVHoz8lco
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) July 7, 2024
Online, far-right conservatives have decried the election results as the death of France. But many are rejoicing that the National Rally, with its history of antisemitism and Holocaust denialism and vehemently racist, anti-immigration rhetoric and platform, has been kept out of power for now.
