The right-wing National Rally party is projected to win the largest share of the vote in France’s first round of parliamentary balloting on June 30.
Former president of the National Rally party Marine Le Pen gives a speech during the results evening of the first round of the parliamentary elections in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, on June 30, 2024. Francois Lo Presti/AFP via Getty Images
Preliminary projections indicate that French President Emmanuel Macron’s party is on track for a devastating defeat in the National Assembly, where 577 seats are up for grabs. Early results show Mr. Macron’s party falling behind both the right-wing party and the left-wing coalition.
According to early exit polling by Ipsos and others, the National Rally Party—France’s leading right-wing populist party—is expected to win around 34 percent of the vote. The left-wing New Popular Front coalition is on track for second place, with around 28.1 percent.
Macron’s party, meanwhile, is expected to come third, with around 20.3 percent of the vote.
This election has drawn an unusually high turnout, with reports circulating that around 66 percent of French voters participated.
However, yesterday’s results, should exit polls prove accurate, only represent the first round of voting. Races where a candidate failed to garner 50 percent or more of the vote will go to a runoff on July 7.
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The results represent the largest right-wing victory in France since the end of World War II, and could represent a political earthquake for the French Republic should the National Rally expand their lead to a majority in the second round of balloting.
Some of those races could include up to four contenders.
Winning a parliamentary majority would enable National Rally leader Marine Le Pen to install her 28-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, as prime minister. She inherited the party, then called the National Front, from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Addressing a jubilant crowd waving French tricolor flags, Le Pen called on voters to push her party over the finish line in the second round of voting.
Should the National Rally gain an absolute majority in the National Assembly, Macron would be forced into a power-sharing arrangement with Bardella. Macron has said he will not step down before his term expires in 2027.
Centrist and left-wing parties, meanwhile, are anxious to take back the initiative from the National Rally party during the second round.
In both Macron’s camp and the left-wing camp, party and coalition leaders are calling for the third-place contender to pull out of the race to improve the chances of defeating the National Rally candidate.
According to Le Monde, the National Rally is leading in the first round of voting in 297 out of the 577 districts—around 51 percent of the legislature.
But only the final round will tell whether the National Rally will end up with a majority, or if they’ll be fought off by the de facto coalition of centrists and the left.
—Joseph Lord
FINAL DECISIONS
The 2023-24 term of the U.S. Supreme Court is coming to an end, and only a few blockbuster rulings remain for the court before it goes into recess until October.
By far the largest and most consequential of these, Trump v. United States, is related to the question of whether former President Donald Trump should be declared immune from prosecution in relation to 2020 election-related criminal charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
During oral arguments in the case delivered in April, the former president’s attorneys argued that former U.S. presidents should have a broad degree of immunity from criminal charges for certain activities they undertook while in office.
The Trump appeal has effectively put the special counsel’s case, which was brought in Washington, to a standstill and it likely won’t make it to trial before the November election.
During oral arguments, some justices appeared to back Trump’s argument that he should have at least some protection. However, many questioned his attorneys’ claims that he should enjoy “absolute immunity.”
Lower courts have rejected Trump’s immunity arguments.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the Trump case, said earlier this year that the presidency “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” while a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals later rejected Trump’s claims, arguing that it would violate the Constitution’s separation of powers clause.
Chief Justice John Roberts said in April’s hearing that he had concerns about the appeals court ruling that rejected the former president’s immunity assertions, contending that the court didn’t adequately address whether the indictment targeted Trump’s private or official actions.
The chief justice argued that the lower court has simply said that “a former president can be prosecuted because he’s being prosecuted,” asking: “Why shouldn’t we either send it back to the Court of Appeals or issue an opinion making clear that that’s not the law?”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that the case “has huge implications for the presidency, for the future of the presidency, for the future of the country, in my view.”
Other justices seemed more skeptical of Trump’s position.
“The Framers did not put an immunity clause into the Constitution. They knew how to,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “And, you know, not so surprising, they were reacting against a monarch who claimed to be above the law. Wasn’t the whole point that the president was not a monarch and the president was not supposed to be above the law?”
Despite some skepticism expressed by justices toward Trump’s position, the case could go in either direction due to conservatives’ 6–3 majority on the court.
Other remaining cases involve Republican-backed laws in Florida and Texas meant to restrict the ability of social media companies to curb content that the platforms deem objectionable, a North Dakota convenience store’s challenge to a government regulation on debit card “swipe fees,” and more.
These are each expected to be finalized and decided on by the end of the week, in line with the traditional end of a Supreme Court term. The court will recess until October following these rulings.
—Joseph Lord and Jack Phillips
BOOKMARKS
The White House is denying rumors that President Joe Biden returned to Camp David to consult his family members about the future of his re-election campaign, The Epoch Times’ Emel Akan reported. It comes as the future of the president’s reelection bid remains a matter of ongoing speculation following a poor performance in his first debate with Trump.
The Supreme Court this week issued a pair of rulings to limit the power of the federal government, significantly curbing agencies’ ability to make regulations and take certain enforcement actions. The Epoch Times’ Sam Dorman reported on the rulings, and what they mean for the future of regulation in the U.S.
The federal government will again pause payments for millions of borrowers amid an ongoing dispute over the legality of the Biden administration’s income-driven repayment plan, The Epoch Times’ Bill Pan reported. It comes after courts blocked a new phase of Biden’s SAVE repayment plan that would have reduced payments to 5 percent of borrowers’ discretionary income, down from the current 10 percent.
Virginia’s popular Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin came out on the campaign trail for Trump for the first time on June 28, The Epoch Times’ Joseph Lord reported. The joint rally, held near the North Carolina border, comes as the Trump campaign sets its sights on turning Virginia red for the first time in two decades.
