Nov 93 min read

Polls vs Reality: What Happened During the 2024 French Election

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Following the 2024 European elections, during which the Renew Alliance had faced a severe loss against the National Rally (NR, Rassemblement national) party of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, Emanuel Macron on June 9th decided to dissolve the National Assembly and to call snap elections. The main last-minute political bloc that had emerged to outbalance the NR was the New Popular Front (NPF, Nouveau Front populaire), a four-party left-green alliance led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a radical-left firebrand from the France Unbowed party (LFI, La France Insoumise). As for the Renew Alliance, even though Mr. Macron had intended this election to reset a legislative balance favouring pro-European governance, support for the centrist coalition (Ensemble) had decreased.

The NFP program was mainly influenced by the France Unbowed Party. Many promises made, such as decreasing the retirement age (striking down Mr. Macron’s pension reform), boosting housing and youth benefits, or cutting income taxes, could cost a significant amount of public spending. These prompts led to a considerable debate among business groups and fiscal conservatives, claiming that this level of spending could fuel inflation and increase the national debt.

So how did the party do so well in the election snap? The alliance certainly benefitted from the “Republican Front” strategy, which in French politics stands for a broad coalition approach where parties gather to prevent the rise of far-right factions. In fact, according to statistics, 54% of the people who had voted for Macron in the first round, together with the 29% of people who cast their vote for Les Républicains (traditional centre-right political party), would show their support for the NPF, as long as the proposed candidates were members of either The Socialist Party (PS), the Greens or the Communist Party (PCF), which share a less radical approach. Numbers would drop a little if the candidates came from the LFI (43% of all voters and 26% of LR voters), as the party would advocate for a strong anti-capitalistic stance and more radical actions.

The National Rally party is known to be a nationalist and Eurosceptic party that supports a strong anti-immigration approach. In the past, the RN was found to stand against Ukraine joining either NATO or the EU, and their campaign in the previous elections was partially financed by a Kremlin-linked Russian bank. The promises that the two candidates had made in the prospect of the snap included a reduction in the minimum retirement age (similar to the NFP’s proposal), as well as a cut in the payroll taxes to push firms to increase low-level salaries, a manoeuvre that, according to economists at Allianz, would cost 10.5bn euros per year. Moreover, Mr Bardella had claimed to negotiate a 2bn-3bn euros cut in European budget contribution.

How did such an extreme radical right-leaning party become so popular lately? Over time, the RN has been trying to change its image from a xenophobic protest outfit to a party that stands out for people. Mr. Bardella played an important role in this transition, as he is now the 28-year-old presentable modern face who joined the party at the age of 16. Voters impersonate him as a mix of economic populism and hard-right nationalism.

The two election rounds were held on the 30th of June and on the 7th of July, and the latter’s results contradicted the polls showing that the National Rally does not hold a majority in the lower house of parliament. Surely, the fragmentation of the right-wing coalition and the accord between the NFP and Ensemble, saying that in each constituency only one candidate among the two parties could keep the spot and the second least voted candidate had to step back, played an important role in declaring the winners of the election. Moreover, European polls that predicted a victory for the RN party usually show an exaggerated protest vote, which means they could not be considered reliable in showing the outcome of the snap election.

Overall, even though the popularity of the National Rally has been increasing over time, and during this election fewer people considered it a “danger for democracy”, their success in the European vote was not indicative of the final election outcome. However, the now-elected NPF has a plan that would completely reverse Mr. Macron’s agenda through populist economic policies. Therefore, it is possible to state that most people were in favour of Mr. Macron’s calling a snap election, but just because they did not want him to win.