French Elections: Prime Minister Attal Makes Final Appeal to Voters to Prevent Far-Right Victory

France’s blitzkrieg election campaign is over and, despite latest calls not to support the far right, voters appear ready to give the National Rally a historic victory in the legislative elections.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal warned that it would trigger “impulses of hatred and aggression”.

But the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, 28, who could be the next prime minister, has instead consolidated its lead in opinion polls.

The National Rally has rejected a series of accusations of racism, implicating both its members and its supporters. The big question now is whether it will manage to obtain an absolute majority in two rounds on the next two Sundays.

The chances are great, because the European elections on June 9 turned the French electoral map dark blue. It was at this precise moment that Emmanuel Macron decided to surprise the French by deciding to call general elections in three weeks.

The National Rally (RN) is preparing for a big night on Sunday, with an opinion poll just hours before the end of the campaign showing 36.5% support.

Its candidates hope to win dozens of seats in the National Assembly overnight, with more than 50% of the votes. But most of the seats will be allocated during a second round on July 7, between two, three, or even four candidates.

The polls therefore do not tell everything, and a hastily formed left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, also has its eyes set on victory, just a few points behind the RN with 29%.

The Ensemble alliance, led by Gabriel Attal, comes in third position with 20.5%, according to the Ifop poll. He argues that the other two main blocs are extreme.

No region of metropolitan France supported the National Rally more than Aisne, a rural department in the north, with just over 50% of the vote.

Since 2022, Aisne already has three RN deputies, and in the historic town of Villers-Cotterêts, they have had a National Rally mayor, Franck Briffaut, for a decade.

A party veteran of more than 40 years, dating back to the days of the National Front under Jean-Marie Le Pen, he believes the path to power was inevitable, in the same way Giorgia Meloni won the elections in Italy.

But like many in his party, he will not settle for anything less than an absolute majority in the National Assembly, which would require at least 289 of the 577 parliamentary seats.

“I will not participate in it, because it is a trap set by Macron. I am also convinced that if we obtain an absolute majority, we will have to remove him. As long as he is there, we cannot carry out our entire program. Because we need changes to the Constitution.”

President Macron has promised that he will not go anywhere before the end of his term in 2027, and that it will be up to him to appoint the next prime minister after the second round of those elections on July 7.

Jordan Bardella, whose campaign posters read “Prime Minister” beneath his name, insists he will not settle for less than an absolute majority.

The question remains of who will be chosen by Emmanuel Macron if the RN is not up to the task. “There is no point in Emmanuel Macron appointing a Prime Minister that no one wants,” says Professor Dominique Rousseau, specialist in the Constitution. But if there is no absolute majority, the president has room for maneuver, according to him.

He would generally come from the largest party, but if that refused, he could instead seek a consensus figure, capable of bringing together what remains of the center right and center left.

For the moment, it is Jordan Bardella who is in the race, announcing two evenings ago during a televised debate that he expected a sort of “national unity government”.

Mr Bardella promised a government of all talents, including, as yet unknown, “sincere patriots who have the sovereignty of France at heart”. However, he appointed the former conservative leader Eric Ciotti, who alienated most of his colleagues by forming an alliance with the RN.

This may not sound convincing, and the prospect of power-sharing – or “cohabitation” – with President Macron looks like a very difficult three years for French politics.

Marine Le Pen, who shares the party leadership with Mr Bardella, is aiming for the presidency in 2027 and has already raised tensions by appearing to question the president’s role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces as mere “honorary acts”.

The intensity of this electoral campaign and its importance pushed the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin to warn against the risk of seeing the “ultra-left and the ultra-right” trying to sow chaos after the two voting rounds. He called on local prefects to be vigilant.