Far-right win French EU elections: how did your area of France vote?

The French far-right celebrated a historic victory in the European parliamentary elections on Sunday (June 9) after a high turn-out vote that saw half of eligible voters participate. 

President Macron announced a snap election in the French parliament in response to his party’s defeat.

Jordan Bardella’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) swept to victory in every region of France, in 93% of communes and all but four departments - the exceptions being: Paris (PS), Seine-Saint-Denis (La France Insoumise), Val-de-Marne (La France Insoumise) and Hauts-de-Seine (Mr Macron’s Besoin d’Europe coalition).

These departments, along with several other largely urban areas, such as Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Lyon, tended to favour the traditional parties of Mr Macron’s Horizons party, the Parti Socialiste and Les Républicains.

A full breakdown of the election results, by department and by commune is available on the official French election results website here.

However, it should be noted that European elections are based on a proportional representation rather than a ‘first past the post’ system. 

This means that MEPs are allotted according to how many votes a party wins nationally, rather than the victory in a given area.

Nonetheless, the RN's victory in 32,613 of France's 35,015 communes is unprecedented.

Jordan Bardella’s victory will give his party the lion’s share of France’s Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

Here are the results as of 22:50 last night.

The RN result was widely anticipated as Mr Bardella’s party had been leading in the polls for many weeks. 

Read more: European Parliamentary elections 2024: France's voting intentions and main political parties 

Nonetheless, it comes as a severe blow to President Macron and his prime minister, Gabriel Attal, who had participated in a televised debate against Mr Bardella on May 23. 

31 MEPs for French far-right

Each European member state is allotted a number of MEPs according to its population size, with France having 81. 

The RN’s victory in France will give it an additional 12 seats in the European Parliament, bringing its total to 31. The RN MEPs are part of the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament 

Read more: Inflation and security key concerns in France ahead of European elections 

President Macron’s centrist coalition won 13 seats.

Snap election announced in France.

After the results came in on Sunday night, a combative Mr Macron gave a televised address on TF1 announcing a snap election in France with the first round on Sunday, June 30, and the second on July 7, 2024.

"This is not a good result for the parties that defend Europe," Macron said. "Far-right parties, which in recent years have opposed so many of the advances that Europe has made possible, are gaining ground across the continent."

"I could not, after this day, act as if nothing had happened," he said. "I have decided to give you the choice. Therefore, I will dissolve the Assemblée Nationale tonight."

The RN’s French leader in the French parliament, Marine Le Pen, announced that her party was “ready to govern” France.

"This historic election shows that when the people vote, the people win," she said. 

The RN’s deputy leader in parliament Louis Aliot told BFMTV that the decision to dissolve parliament was indeed warranted and that his party would try to make Mr Bardella prime minister if it wins the vote on June 30.