The high turnout is likely to mean that many more third-place candidates will make it to the second round of the election, Mujtaba Rahman, Eurasia Group’s managing director for Europe, said on social media.
Following Sunday’s vote, campaigning will resume on Monday for a further five days before voters are called back to the polls for a final, decisive second-round ballot on 7 July.
In recent days, candidates from the leftwing coalition and Macron’s centrist alliance have scrambled to remind voters that the RN, launched in the early 1970s as the National Front, once included in its ranks former members of a Waffen-SS military unit under Nazi command during the second world war.
Most analysts suggest the most likely outcome is a polarised parliament, where consensus between the larger far-right and leftwing blocs, and a smaller number of Macron’s allies would be nearly impossible, leading to political paralysis.
If the RN wins a majority, the party chief, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 28-year-old protege who has no governing experience, could become prime minister in a fraught cohabitation with Macron.
In the lead-up to Sunday’s first round vote, Macron sought to hammer home this point, warning that France risked being plunged into a “civil war” if either of his “extreme” opponents won a majority.
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