This is going to be a big week in international politics, because both France and the UK will be holding legislative elections.

In France, it will be held over 2 rounds on 30 June and 7 July via a runoff system. Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron’s Centrist Party is expected to suffer major losses to Marine Le Pen’s Populist Right party, with the French Socialist Left and Greens forming an alliance to contest this. Since the final results of Round 2 will be determined on what happens on Round 1, it’s difficult to predict what will happen. All that’s known is that there are 577 seats in the French Legislative Assembly, so a majority of 289 is needed. Currently, no parties seem to be able to secure that.

In the UK, there is a General Election due on 4 July (next Thursday), where the all-important BBC Exit Poll is due to be released on 10pm UK time, or 7am Friday Australian Eastern Time. But polls currently predict a massive majority to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party of 400+ seats with around 40% of the vote, what with the right wing vote split between incumbent Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, both of them at around 15-20% of the vote, and with the UK’s First-Past-The-Post voting system, there are no preferences as there is in Australia, simply the candidate with the most votes wins each of the 650 seats.

As a result, Labour is expected to easily win in a record landslide, according to the current polls. We’ll know by Friday.

https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast