Marine Le Pen says she will seek to form government even if short of outright majority

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Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said her Rassemblement National party would seek to form a new French government even if it falls short of an outright majority, in a shift in position ahead of Sunday’s run-off vote.

As centrists and left-wingers appeared to make progress in co-ordinating against the far right, Le Pen said that if the RN narrowly failed to secure a majority on its own, it would look for allies for parliamentary backing.

In last weekend’s first round, the RN inflicted a resounding defeat on President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist forces and is projected to come in first again on Sunday.

“We want to govern, to be extremely clear. And if we are a few deputies short of the majority,” Le Pen said on France Inter Radio on Tuesday, “we will go see others and say: ‘Are you ready to participate with us in a new majority with a new policy?’”

But, in an indication of the RN’s resolve to pursue its agenda, she said the party “could not accept going into government if we cannot act”.

Jordan Bardella, the party’s chief and candidate for prime minister, had previously said he would not govern without an absolute majority of the parliament’s 577 seats.

In a bid to deprive the far right of a 289-seat majority, Macron’s alliance is working on pulling some of its third-place candidates ahead of Sunday’s run-off and the leftwing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) has said they will pull all of theirs.

Candidates have to be registered by Tuesday night. So far 202 have dropped out, according to Le Monde, with 127 from leftwing parties and 75 from Macron’s centrists.

Le Pen said she believed her party could find allies on the left and right, notably within the conservative Les Républicains party.

But it remains unclear whether she and Bardella will succeed in doing so. Éric Ciotti, the then-leader of Les Républicains, caused outrage and was forced to leave the party last month when he teamed up with the RN.

The prospect of an RN government further cements the “normalisation” of the far right in French politics. In recent years, Le Pen has pushed to expunge its more radical and racist elements, including her own father, who co-founded the movement in 1972.

But ahead of this summer’s snap election, the party has pledged to fight a “cultural battle” against Islamism, end birthright citizenship for people born in France to foreign parents, and restrict so-called “sensitive” government jobs to French citizens.

On Tuesday, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire wrote on X: “Let’s stop beating around the bush: the RN is a danger to the Republic. Their questioning of the loyalty of dual nationals is revolting. Ending birthright citizenship is an insult to our universalism.”

“Not a single vote should go to the Rassemblement National,” he added.

According to final results for Sunday’s first round from the Ministry of the Interior, the RN block secured 33 per cent of the vote and the leftwing NFP had 28 per cent. Macron’s Ensemble alliance secured 21 per cent.

Pollsters believe a hung parliament or an outright majority for the RN are the most likely outcomes. If the RN wins big, Macron may be forced into an uncomfortable power-sharing arrangement with the RN, known as “cohabitation” in France.

An adviser to Macron said the president would probably offer the RN the chance to form a government if the party won around 250 or 260 seats — even though the constitution does not require such a move.

“They may find allies to get to 289,” the person said. “You’re not obliged to but tradition says that you propose it to the majority group.”