Yes, that's right.Thanks for the whole post, will think about it when more awake. What is the French word for 'constituencies' is it région or départements or something else.. I suspect it is this :
This French site has an interactive map, if you click on the constituency you can see the breakdown for both rounds:We probably need a diagram eventually to understand it..
If you look at the example below for Cher, 1st district, the National Rally had 45% in the first round with the other parties trailing by more than 13%.
![1720564652156.png 1720564652156.png](https://christisking.cc/data/attachments/7/7965-e741bea07872642bbd394728929d9fa8.jpg?hash=JmPJmyUDKg)
The leftist candidate withdrew in the second round and it was a two-horse race between the Macron candidate and the National Rally candidate. The latter obtained nearly 49% but failed to win the seat and therefore the National Rally got nothing. This played out in many constituencies.
![1720564790541.png 1720564790541.png](https://christisking.cc/data/attachments/7/7966-b983dae3796b8cb21474321d3dc648e2.jpg?hash=Z6CzVx1XJS)
Yes, unless you win 50% in the first round.Sounds like the first round results are totally discarded after it's done.
I believe it was instituted originally to keep the Communist party out of power.The first round just filters for the second round. I wonder what the thinking is behind it, who designed it, maybe like a cooling off period if everyone thinks they did something crazy the first time they have a chance to fix it.