At the gates of power: Can French left, centrists stop far-right in second round?

The Debate

Turns out the polls did get it right. One in three voters chose the far-right in Sunday’s first round of French snap legislative elections, putting Marine Le Pen’s party on the brink of power, an unprecedented score for an extreme that’s never before won in France through the ballot box. With one short week before the run-off, we will ask why…

and what it will take for rivals to coalesce. Politics indeed makes strange bedfellows. With a 577-seat National Assembly, we will ask just how hard it will be for old rivals to hold their noses and vote for each other in the more than 400 runoffs where the far-right has a chance.

More broadly, what has changed in the two short years since the last parliament got voted in in the wake of Emmanuel Macron’s re-election and what consequences will his decision to dissolve said parliament have on France, Europe and beyond?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Juliette Brown.