With 33.1% of the vote – or more than 10.6 million voters – the National Rally and its allies came out on top in the first round of the legislative elections in France ahead of the New Popular Front (28%) and the presidential majority (20.8%).
Like the historic scores it achieved in a large part of Brittany, the far-right party has never been so high in Ille-et-Vilaine. On Sunday, June 30, exactly 140,395 Bretilliens slipped an RN ballot into the ballot box compared to… 49,646 in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections. Although the turnout increased by around 20 points between the two elections, such an increase remains absolutely staggering in just 24 months.
An illustration of this navy blue tidal wave: the Le Pen party obtained almost 50% of the votes cast in some municipalities of the department during Sunday’s election. It was in Availles-sur-Seiche, a village of 650 inhabitants located on the border with Mayenne, that the RN achieved its biggest score. RN candidate Françoise Gilois – whose photo did not even appear on the campaign poster – came out on top with 49.2% of the votes.
The RN in force in the rural sector
As elsewhere in France, it is in rural areas that the National Rally achieves its best scores in Ille-et-Vilaine. The far-right party thus finishes largely first in many small villages such as Chelun (48.6%), Saint-Séglin (48.5%), Les Brulais (47.8%) and Sains (47.7%).
A new development is that it has also managed to make its mark in medium-sized towns such as Miniac-Morvan, near Saint-Malo. A town with over 4,000 inhabitants that put the RN in the lead with 45.1% of the votes cast. Conversely, and as was the case in the last European elections, it is in Rennes that it obtained its lowest score in the entire department with only 11.5% of the votes.
