National Rally party foiled by opponents' tactical deal-making

PARIS The champagne was on ice at the far-right National Rally's (RN) headquarters, but the celebratory mood swiftly turned to disbelief when the first projected results from the July 7 parliamentary elections appeared on TV screens.

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For days, Ms Marine Le Pen confidently predicted that her party would triumph with an outright majority and her protege, Mr Jordan Bardella, would be prime minister. Instead, the RN was on course to come third, behind a left-wing alliance and President Emmanuel Macron's centrist bloc.

It was undone to a large extent by tactical deal-making between its centrist and leftist opponents, who pulled more than 200 candidates from three-way races to avoid splitting the anti-RN vote.

The projected result brought to a shuddering halt what had appeared to be the far right's relentless rise in France, carefully engineered by Ms Le Pen, who had sought to clean up her party's image and tap the grievances of voters angry over living costs, strained public services and immigration.

To be sure, Ms Le Pen and her party have suffered disappointment before, most recently her 2022 defeat by Mr Macron in the presidential election, and have managed to bounce back more strongly than before.

But for now, the outcome is a bitter pill to swallow.