France!

So much doomcasting in these Biden threads, let’s talk about a cheerful subject like the French elections!

French polling stations reported high turnout on Sunday for the first round of snap legislative elections — a vote that could shatter French President Emmanuel Macron’s parliamentary alliance and bring a far-right government to power here for the first time since World War II.

As of midday, voter turnout of about 26 percent was the highest it had been in more than 40 years, reflecting the perceived stakes of the vote. And perhaps because the election announcement came as such a surprise, the number of people requesting a proxy vote doubled compared with the last legislative elections two years ago, according to the French Interior Ministry.

Voting ends at 8 p.m. local time, or 2 p.m. Eastern time. France’s public broadcaster typically announces a projection soon after.

Sunday’s results will provide a first indication of how severely voters intend to punish Macron’s centrists while boosting populists on the right and radicals on the left. Few candidates running to represent the country’s 577 constituencies are expected to gain enough votes to be immediately elected. Some will not have enough support to continue on.

A second round on July 7 will answer the big questions: whether the far-right National Rally will get enough seats in the National Assembly to form a government, with its leader Jordan Bardella as prime minister, or whether France will end up with the messy scenario of a hung parliament.The latest polls anticipate National Rally garnering about 36 percent of the vote in this first round; the leftist New Popular Front about 28 percent; and Together, Macron’s alliance, lagging behind with about 21 percent.

Zero fucking idea whether high turnout is good or bad but honestly it sounds bad. Depending on the sequence we may have another post on the results but for now consider this an open thread for discussing European elections. Note that our Powerpress plugin is temporarily down so if you’d like to access my discussion with Brockington you’ll need to do so through a standard podcast provider rather than through the frontpage.