No party secured an absolute majority in legislative elections in France on Sunday, according to early projections, which suggested that the parliament would be deadlocked.

It was not immediately clear whether the far-Right National Rally or a Left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front, had garnered the most seats.

The polls officially closed at 8pm local time, and official results will come in throughout the night. Projections released by polling institutes just after voting closed, based on preliminary results, appeared to be in agreement that no party had secured enough votes for an absolute majority — but did not offer a clear picture on how many seats each won.

In the first round of voting last week, President Emmanuel Macron’s party, Renaissance, and its allies came in a distant third. Macron’s centrist bloc and a newly formed coalition of Left-wing parties, the New Popular Front, withdrew candidates from more than 200 races in an effort to band together voters opposed to the far-Right. That strategy appeared to have succeeded in denying the National Rally an absolute majority, according to the projections.

While the National Rally’s failure to win an absolute majority might come as a relief to the many people who believe that the party is a threat to French democratic values and institutions, what comes next and instead will inevitably pose a challenge.

Voter participation at 5pm local time was the highest in over two decades, at nearly 60 per cent, the interior ministry said. That was much higher than during the previous legislative elections in 2022, when the participation rate at the same time was about 38 per cent.

New York Times News Service