Newest Poll Shows Far-Right Lead Shrinking As Left Alliance Gains

The latest opinion poll from Elabeahead of the 30 June legislative election first round shows the lowest support for the far-right Rassembelement National (National Rally, RN) of any poll carried out since President Emmanuel Macron called the snap election on 9 June, with 31% support. This still makes the party the most popular out of all parties/groups polled, although just 3% ahead of its nearest challenger.

• The nascent leftist New Popular Front (NFP) alliance sits in second place with 28% support. The NFP was hastily agreed in the wake of the election announcement and includes the NUPES alliance - formed by the extreme-left Communist Party, far-left La France Insoumise (LFI), environmentalist Ecologists, and centre-left Socialist Party (PS) - and other small and miscellaneous parties of the left and centre-left.
• The centrist Ensemble alliance, including Macron's Renaissance, combined with parties of the miscellaneous centre, sits in a distant third place with 18% support.
• The two-round electoral system makes it more difficult to project an outcome from the legislative elections, given that two or more parties can go through to the second round depending on vote totals, thereby making assumptions on tactical voting potentially null-and-void.
• Nevertheless, if these vote totals were repeated in the election it would leave Macron's party in a position of going from the largest bloc in a hung parliament to potentially the third-placed grouping forced to work with either the far-right or a far-left grouping.