French results for the European Parliament came up with very few surprises. For the last couple of months, the polls gave quite precise predictions. So the results below were more or less expected:
National Rally (far right) - 31,4%
Renew (presidential majority - Macron) - 14,6%
Socialist Party - 13,8%
Rebellious France (Mélenchon, jacobin left) - 9,9%
The Republicans (center right) - 7,3%
Ecologists - 5,5%
Reconquest (right) - 5,5%
However, it came with a bit of surprise that the National Rally "only" got 31,4%, since polls credited Marine Le Pen's party list with 34-35%. Also, the presidential list was supposed to get over 15% of the votes and it arrived below this threshold.
There were many winners in these elections. Of course, the main winner is the National Rally, who improved its score by 8% to top at 31,4% far ahead of all its opponents. The Socialists more than doubled their score, from 6,2% in 2019 to 13,8% with the same number one, Raphael Glucksmann. The Rebellious also improved from 6,3% to 9,9%. And of course, Marion Maréchal's Reconquest, that did not compete 5 years ago, made it into the European Parliament with 5,5%.
On the other hand, the big losers were President Macron's proxy Valérie Hayer from Renew and the Ecologists. The list of the presidential majority lost more than 1/3 of the votes it received in 2019, going down from 22,5% to 14,6%. Renew still came second after the National Rally, but in 2019 it was only one percentage point behind the National Rally, while this time it got less than half of the National Rally's votes.
The Ecologists were also big losers of these elections, going from a record score of 13,48% in 2019 to only 5,5% in 2024.
On a lower level, the list of François-Xavier Bellamy for the Republicans lost only 1,5% compared to 2019.
When everybody thought they were heading to a quiet electoral evening, President Macron took everybody by surprise and announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and a snap parliamentary election for June 30 and July 7.