French elections 2024, The Economist:
Unlike polls before the vote suggested, the National Rally (RN), the hard-right party of Marine Le Pen and her 28-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella, will not be the biggest force in the lower house of parliament. After securing the biggest vote share in the first round, they have won a mere 143 seats (including their right-wing allies led by Eric Ciotti). That is far less than the New Popular Front (NFP), a left-wing alliance that has won 182 seats.
Opinion polls ahead of the first round showed the far-right grouping of parties led by Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) firmly in the lead, predicted to win 36% of the vote. Polls indicate the far-right group has a good chance of taking the second, decisive round of the voting on July 7, too.
The polls show a grouping of left, far-left and various green parties is likely to come in second in Sunday's first election round, capturing around 29% of the vote.
Trailing behind is the centrist group led by Macron's Renaissance party, which polls suggest will garner only about 19.5% of the vote.
When the votes were counted in the second round of voting, the left-wing coalition came in first and won the most seats, while the hard-right National Rally came in third - the opposite of what the polls had predicted.