The duel between Emmanuel Macron's incumbent majority and Jean-Luc Mélenchon's pan-leftist NUPES coalition duly dominated the spotlight on Sunday after the first round of France's legislative elections. But far-right National Rally flagbearer Marine Le Pen had a red-letter night at the ballot box. Even at the low end of seat projections for next Sunday's run-off, Le Pen will have shored up party finances, seen off a pesky political foe and guaranteed herself a gilded soapbox for five more years.
The far right is rarely a focal point in French parliamentary polls. It has long been a political truism in France that the legislative elections – 577 individual seat races in two rounds, majority wins, for the lower-house National Assembly – favour parties that can cast a wide net and cultivate parliamentary alliances, leaving the country's predominant go-it-alone far-right party, founded by Marine Le Pen's rabble-rousing father Jean-Marie half a century ago, out in the cold.
