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Legislative 2022

Legislative: the breakthrough of the RN, the feat that no one saw coming

The far-right party achieved a historic performance by installing 89 deputies in the National Assembly.

A totally unpredictable result, which is undoubtedly the main lesson of the election.

Ludwig Gallet, Victor Alexandre, Fabien Casaleggio and Stanislas de Livonnière

Last update: June 15, 2022

Never has the Fifth Republic experienced such an institutional crisis.

Barely re-elected, Emmanuel Macron finds himself prevented, or almost.

The deputies of the opposition are more numerous than those of the majority in the Assembly.

The Head of State can only count on 245 deputies elected to the National Assembly, including those of his allies.

A slap.

Read alsoConsult the results near you

How to govern?

With whom ?

No one could have imagined that these questions would find themselves at the heart of the news and of French political life.

For weeks, journalists and commentators have followed the announced duel between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Emmanuel Macron.

Even Marine Le Pen had publicly conceded that the re-elected president would obtain a majority at the Palais Bourbon.

The French have voted and the presidential finalist finds herself with a parliamentary group of 89 deputies.

Never seen.

This is the real lesson of this second round of legislative elections.

That of a breakthrough that no one had anticipated.

A multicolored… or fractured France

The days of bipartisanship are only a distant memory.

Four political forces now prevail.

The left, united for this election.

The presidential majority, which is no longer totally one.

The Republicans, who manage to save the furniture and find themselves in a strategic position.

And then the National Rally, which became the first non-coalition opposition party.

The candidates who came out on top in the second round of the 2022 legislative elections

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

The candidates who came out on top in the second round of the 2022 legislative elections

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Constituencies won in 2022 by an RN candidate

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Constituencies won in 2022 by an RN candidate

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Constituencies won in 2017 by an FN candidate

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

This map shows the constituencies won by the different political forces in the country.

The relative majority conceded by Emmanuel Macron (in yellow) is very visible there.

The breakthrough of the RN too.

The Rassemblement national knew how to establish itself and expand from its strongholds.

Especially in the North and in the Southeast.

The party led by Jordan Bardella alone won 89 constituencies.

A historical record.

Unexpected victories appear on this map, especially in the Gironde region.

Five years ago, the National Rally had only succeeded in electing eight deputies to the National Assembly.

The two-round majority voting system applicable to legislative elections is supposed to disadvantage a party like the RN.

This rule no longer seems to apply, as if the party had succeeded in shattering its glass ceiling, the one that has deprived it of power for years.

The RN on the rise

The presidential election had demonstrated the ability of the National Rally to exceed the threshold of 20% of the votes on almost all of the territory.

This new establishment was almost confirmed during the legislative elections.

Especially in relation to the 2017 election.

Score of RN candidates in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections

As a % of the number of votes

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Score of RN candidates in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections

As a % of the number of votes

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Score of RN candidates in the second round of the 2022 legislative elections

As a % of the number of votes

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Evolution of the score of RN candidates between the first rounds of 2017 and 2022

As a % of the number of votes

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Evolution of the score of RN candidates between the first rounds of 2017 and 2022

As a % of the number of votes

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Here are the scores achieved by the RN candidates in the first round of the legislative elections.

The 20% threshold is exceeded in a large part of the territory.

In the second round, several RN candidates even managed to exceed 60%.

Let's look at the evolution of the scores achieved by RN candidates between the first rounds of the legislative elections of 2017 and 2022.

All the constituencies tinted in blue are those in which the RN saw its score progress between the two ballots.

Either everywhere or almost.

This increase is very marked on the entire western facade of the country, where the RN usually achieves lower scores.

This is what has enabled the party to take over constituencies in Gironde.

What happened between the two legislative rounds?

At the end of the first, most polls did not grant more than 50 seats to elected RNs.

In off, executives had also counted on this result to talk about potential success.

They eventually got 39 more, setting a historic record.

A thundering second round

In 2017, the National Rally was maintained in the second round in 110 constituencies, against 61 in 2012. The rise in power was even stronger this year.

The constituencies in which the RN was qualified in the second round in 2022

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

The constituencies in which the RN won the second round in 2022

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Here is the map of the constituencies in which the RN candidate qualified in the second round

The Rassemblement managed to qualify 208 candidates in the second round.

Of this total, it therefore won 89. That is more than 42% of the constituencies in which the party was in contention.

Five years ago, the Republican front had still functioned.

The National Rally had won just over 7% of the constituencies in which the party was still in contention in the second round.

The next cards show the total absence of mobilization against the RN vote.

The RN, a normalized party?

Since taking over the leadership of the National Rally, formerly the National Front, Marine Le Pen has endeavored to change the perception among the French.

To de-demonize him in order to anchor him in French political life and hope, one day, to take power.

In many respects, a decisive step seems to have been taken last Sunday.

Evolution of the score of RN candidates between the first and second round 2022

As a % of the number of votes

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Score of RN candidates in the second round of the 2022 legislative elections

As a % of votes cast

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Score of RN candidates in the second round of the 2022 legislative elections

As a % of votes cast

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Score of RN candidates in the second round of the 2022 legislative elections

As a % of votes cast

Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

This map illustrates the evolution of the number of votes obtained by RN candidates between the first round and the second round of the 2022 legislative elections.

The National Rally is making very strong progress in a very large number of constituencies, by more than 50% in many cases (in blue).

In some constituencies (in dark blue), he even manages to double his score, or even more.

Let's now zoom in on the 208 constituencies in which the RN was qualified in the second round and look at the evolution of the number of votes between the second round 2017 and 2022.

The increase in the number of votes is almost general, except in three constituencies, in red.

The constituencies in white are those in which the RN did not qualify in 2017, making any comparison impossible.

It was almost written at the end of the first round that the National Rally would achieve its objective of forming a group in the National Assembly.

It remained to know the political weight after the 208 clashes against candidates from the majority, Nupes, LR or others.

Disappeared, the republican front

The new deputies of the National Rally discovered the benches of the National Assembly on Wednesday, posing proudly behind their leader Marine Le Pen.

For the first time in their history, the far-right party enjoys significant nuisance power in the hemicycle.

The constituencies in which the RN was qualified in the second round in 2022

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

The constituencies won by each side in duels RN - ENS

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

The constituencies won by each side in RN - Nupes duels

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

The constituencies won by each side in RN - LR duels

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Source: Ministry of the Interior - Credits: LP/Victor Alexandre

Let's go back to the map of the constituencies in which the National Rally was engaged in the second round and look at the results of the various duels.

Against the candidates of the majority, the RN makes more than good figure.

The two parties clashed in 108 second rounds in these legislative elections.

They have won 53 times.

Or almost one in two duels.

Faced with the Nupes, the result is even more satisfactory for Marine Le Pen.

The National Rally won 53% of its duels against a left-wing candidate.

Only the Republicans held up well in their duels against the RN.

Christian Jacob's party won the vast majority of its duels.

The very strong abstention but above all the absence of mobilization to block the National Rally can partly explain how the party, which kept calling for the introduction of proportional representation for the legislative elections, was able to achieve this breakthrough.

If we look at the figures published by the interactive Harris Institute on the carryover of votes, it appears that 18% of Together voters turned to the RN in the event of a duel against Nupes in the second round, against 24 % of Nupes voters in the event of an Ensemble/RN duel and even 27% for LR voters in the event of a Nupes/RN duel

Read also "The Republican front is withering strongly" ... what the vote reports say

The National Assembly had not had a relative majority for 34 years, making the ability of the majority to implement its program very uncertain.

Emmanuel Macron understood this perfectly, he who resigned himself on Wednesday evening to promising a “larger and clearer” majority, either by finding new alliances, or by trying to negotiate “text by text” a majority to obtain the vote of the texts.

A task that promises to be difficult.