The landslide of votes cast for the far-right Rassemblement National party in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday have put it on course to gain a possible absolute majority in the National Assembly after next Sunday’s final, second-round vote. Among the far-right candidates whose high scores last Sunday leave them likely to be elected to parliament next weekend are individuals who take to social media with openly racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and homophobic comments. Antton Rouget reports.      

Paris is hosting the Paralympic Games and the organisation of infrastructures for the more than 4,000 competing athletes has been widely praised. But outside the Olympic village, the daily obstacles in the path of the disabled in the French capital, and in particular for wheelchair users, in taking public transport, accessing a GP’s surgery or entering shops, can be a major challenge. “It is an undeclared form of segregation,” commented Nicolas Mérille, national advisor on issues of accessibility for APF France Handicap, an association that champions the rights of the disabled. Cécile Hautefeuille reports.

France went to the polls this Sunday for the first round of crunch parliamentary elections to elect the 577 members of the next National Assembly. This unscheduled snap election has taken place as a result of President Emmanuel Macron's unexpected decision on June 9th to dissolve the Assembly. But that gamble looks as if it has backfired spectacularly and dramatically. Various projections after today's first round of voting suggest that the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) could pick up around 260 to 280 seats or more in next week's decisive second round vote. If so, there is a chance that France could get its first far-right government since 1945; they need 289 for a majority. The new leftwing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) is also expected to do well, and may pick up 160 seats. But the president's centre-right coalition looks set to be heavily defeated. With the centre-right and Left tonight pledging to block the RN's path to power, the likely outcomes look set to be either a narrow RN majority or, more probably, a hung Parliament with the RN as the single biggest party. Follow our live coverage of the first-round results and reactions as they came in through the evening. Reporting by Graham Tearse and Michael Streeter.

A collapse in support for the centre-right camp of President Emmanuel Macron, a stronger leftwing alliance and a potentially game-changing breakthrough by the far-right Rassemblement National ... as voters head for the ballot box today for the first round of what is both an uncertain and an historic parliamentary election, Mediapart examines what is at stake for the main political groups taking part. Mathieu Dejean, Pauline Graulle, Youmni Kezzouf, Ilyes Ramdani and Ellen Salvi report.

Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, the Member of the European Parliament who negotiated a Russian loan for France's far-right Rassemblement National, runs a foundation which received hundreds of thousands of euros in return for speeches in the Parliament that were favourable to Moscow, according to emails seen by Mediapart. When questioned about this Marine Le Pen, who was president of the party at the time of the Russian loan, did not respond. Marine Turchi reports.

The transfer of seven New Caledonian pro-independence activists to prisons in mainland France following the recent unrest has fuelled a new wave of violence in the French Pacific territory since Saturday. The group behind the recent protests is now making the return of these “political prisoners” a new condition for peace on the troubled archipelago. Gilles Caprais reports from New Caledonia's capital Nouméa.

With just days to go before the first round of voting in France's Parliamentary elections, there is a real danger that Rassemblement National could form the next French government. Victory for the far right would not simply lead to a worsening of the conservative policies that are already being pursued in France, writes Mediapart co-founder Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. It would mark an historic break with the past, he argues, by handing the far right their revenge over opponents who support equality and the universality of human rights.

The hastily-formed New Popular Front (NFP), which combines the Left and the Greens, is having to work on plans  to broaden its electoral support beyond its own base in order to win the Parliamentary elections, the first round of which takes place on Sunday June 30th. Despite a toxic debate on anti-Semitism and the false equivalence opponents are making between the leftwing alliance and the far-right Rassemblement National, key figures in the NFP are working hard on a strategy they believe can bring them success in the election's decisive second round on July 7th. Part of this approach is to emphasise the wide-reaching benefits across society of their own manifesto pledges rather than just warning about the dangers posed by the far right. Mathieu Dejean reports.

On June 27th 2023 17-year-old Nahel was shot dead by a police officer on the streets of Nanterre in the western suburb of Paris, sparking days of protests and unrest in many areas. A year later Mediapart has returned to Nanterre's Pablo-Picasso housing estate where Nahel and his family lived. For many in this traditionally left-voting area the snap election just called by President Emmanuel Macron seems a distant issue compared with the problems of everyday life. Yet it is the residents of this estate whom Sabrina Sebaihi, the candidate for leftwing alliance the New Popular Front, is trying to convince to get out and vote over two rounds on June 30th and July 7th. Mathilde Goanec reports.

Having called a snap election, the French president quickly nailed his colours to the mast. The far-right Rassemblement National is preferable to the leftwing New Popular Front: that is the underlying message of Emmanuel Macron's slanderous attack - supported by his allies - against the union of the Left and the greens, an alliance that has been dubbed shameless and been accused of anti-Semitism. But in his criticism of this new front the French head of state is displaying both an ignorance of history and duplicity, writes Mediapart co-founder Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article.