Why have so many candidates dropped out? How might that impact the election results?

Mechanics of France’s elections

At the heart of the above question are the mechanics of the French election. France has a bicameral legislature. The Senate is the upper house, and the National Assembly is the lower house.

The current polls are to elect legislators for 577 seats in the National Assembly. They are being held in two rounds.

In the first round, votes were cast in all 577 constituencies. Candidates who secured more than 50% of votes polled, and a vote total greater than 25% of the registered electorate in the constituency, were directly elected. Only 76 candidates, almost all from the far-right and left parties, made it to the National Assembly after the voting on June 30.

This leaves the remaining 506 seats up for grabs in July 7’s runoff elections. In the run-off election, the top two candidates, as well as anyone who got the support of at least 12.5% of registered voters (not votes polled) can contest. The candidate with the most votes will win.

Tactical withdrawal

There are three main blocs dominating the French elections: the far-right RN, led by Marine Le Pen, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition, and the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition. Out of the three, Macron’s coalition fared most poorly after the first round of voting (as was expected), with the far-right RN making the biggest gains.

Consequently, Macron and his allies, as well as the leftists, began campaigning to prevent the RN from ascending to power. To both the centrist and leftist coalitions, keeping the far-right party from coming to power, seems to be the priority despite their own ideological differences.

“Faced with the National Rally, the time has come for a broad, unequivocally democratic and republican alliance for the second round,” Macron said on June 30. Jean-Luc Mélenchon of left-wing France Unbowed, and the de facto head of the NFP, made a similar call after the results of the first round of polling were announced.

Thus, before the July 2 deadline for the registration of candidates for the second round, 218 candidates had dropped out of the parliamentary race. Of these, 130 belonged to the NFP, while 82 represented Macron’s Ensemble alliance, France24 reported.

The logic behind this is to consolidate the left-wing and centrist vote against RN in round two.

Prior to the withdrawals, over 300 constituencies were slated for three-way contests between the far-right, centrist, and left-wing candidates in the second round. This number has now dropped to less than 100.

At the very least, the centrists and the left-wingers hope that their consolidation can prevent a clean sweep for the RN.