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WITH Britain’s election being staged in the very middle of the two rounds of the French election, a “tale of two countries” is unfolding this week.

While the predictions for Britain’s election left relatively little room for speculation, the world will be eagerly watching as the French go to vote in the second round of their snap parliamentary election on Sunday July 7.

The first round of the French election took place on June 30 with 33.15 per cent votes cast in favour of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN), 27.99 per cent votes in favour of the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) alliance, and 20.04 per cent votes going to President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling centrist coalition Ensemble.

The popular support for the French far right in the outcome of the European Parliament’s election on June 9 was the precise threat under which President Macron dissolved the National Assembly and announced the snap election.

The same threat brought the hitherto fragmented leftist forces together. The NFP is a coalition formed by the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Greens, and the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI).

While the individual parties stand crucially divided on a number of issues, they are contesting the election on the basis of a single manifesto. The NFP fielded a single candidate in each of the 546 seats they contested in the first round, with LFI-supported candidates in 229 seats, Socialist Party candidates in 175 seats, 92 Greens and 50 Communist Party candidates.

The second round is going one step further by bringing about a collaboration between the allied leftists and the centrists. They are helping each other by pre-emptively pulling out their respective candidates in some constituencies where the far-right can benefit from the anti-far-right votes being split between the centrists and the leftists.

The second round takes place in all the constituencies where no candidates got the support of at least 50 per cent of the registered voters in the first round.

Technically, any candidate who was backed in the first round by at least 12.5 per cent of the registered voters can contest the final face-off; whoever then gets the highest number of votes in the second round wins. This time, the number of candidates eligible to contest the second round remained high.

However, intense discussions between the NFP and Macron’s Ensemble in the three days following the first round resulted in over 220 candidates who finished in third place in the first round standing down their constituency races.

After the leftist unity envisaged in the NFP, such a goal-oriented compromise between the leftists and the centrists is being referred to as the Republican Front. On the coming Sunday therefore, the French voters are going to face a binary choice between the far-right RN and the leftist-centrist Republican Front.

The Republican Front faces one particular challenge though, which is that some centrist voters, particularly those on the right end of the spectrum, may identify RN as the more acceptable option than a coalition which also includes a left-wing party like LFI led by a staunch hardliner like Jean-Luc Melenchon.

If such voters remain an insignificant minority, then Sunday’s election won’t culminate in a far-right celebration. It is also not clear in whose favour the supporters of the conservative Republican Party — the one formerly led by the likes of Jacques Chirac or Nicolas Sarkozy — will vote.

Overall, there remains a significant possibility of a hung parliament despite far-right RN candidates having the lead in 296 out of 577 constituencies in the first round. The results from the first round are already making headlines about the country potentially electing a far-right government.

But the positive prospects facing the left camp are being played down. A few things, for example, have already become apparent from the observed vote shares and the tactical responses of the political parties.

First, the right-leaning centrism of Macron has badly failed in France. After Macron’s party failed to reach an absolute majority in the 2022 legislative election, the government had a hard time passing its policy and Budget proposals in the National Assembly.

Forcefully implementing the pension reform, which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64, resulted in nationwide protests. The economy has slowed down with increasing concerns about disappointing unemployment figures, increasing prices, and the government missing its fiscal targets.

Macron’s cabinet survived the two no-confidence motions in 2023 with narrow margins and was later reshuffled with more right-leaning ministers replacing relatively left-leaning ones. And it is failing even more badly in the current election. The opportunistic tilt towards the right has helped pave the way for the far right.

Second, perhaps frustrated with the Macron government’s shortcomings in improving working conditions and securing public institutions, the French people are leaning towards more radical policies.

Both RN and NFP are in favour of raising taxes and public spending, taking a clear fiscal policy approach. As the different segments of the French populace watch this tactical war becoming increasingly polarised, speculative reactions are reflected in terms of market indicators.

Leading French stock index CAC-40 fell by more than 6.5 per cent between the announcement of the election and the first round of voting. Bond prices have fallen in anticipation of increased public borrowing. This is causing investor anxiety as falling bond prices are usually followed by adverse lending conditions.

Third, whether this election results in a hung parliament or not, the leftists have emerged as the main opposition voice and hopefully more consolidated than ever in the recent past.

A high vote share of the NFP also shows that people do not find the far-left as dangerous as the Socialist Party or the centrists have often projected them. After all, LFI candidates were the ones contesting the majority of the seats for the NFP. With the centrists defeated, the debates in the parliament are now more likely to be taken to the streets.