03.07.2025

New publication: Snap Out of It? Governmental Instability and Far-Right Mainstreaming in the Dutch and French Elections of 2023/2024

Authors: Marianna Griffini, Léonie de Jonge, Marta Lorimer

Neither the Netherlands nor France were expected to have new governments in 2024. Dutch voters were due to go back to the polls in 2025, while France was to hold the next legislative election in 2027. However, between the summer of 2023 and the summer of 2024, both Mark Rutte and Gabriel Attal government's term came to an early end, with snap elections being held in November 2023 in the Netherlands and June/July 2024 in France.

In this article, we compare the two elections to show how despite widely differing institutional conditions, both elections returned weakened governments dependent on the goodwill of the far right for their political survival. France and the Netherlands can be regarded as two ‘most different cases’ when it comes to their electoral and governmental systems. Whereas the former relies on a two-round majoritarian voting system favouring the emergence of clear and stable governmental majorities, the latter is based on a strongly proportional electoral system where post-electoral coalition building plays a key role. However, in this case, their electoral systems led both countries towards a similarly unstable equilibrium. Both countries departed from, and returned to, a situation of political instability. Moreover, the far right made remarkable inroads in both cases. Far-right ideas and personalities dominated the debate, contributing to a continued mainstreaming of their positions. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders's Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV – Party for Freedom) also gained a foot in a coalition government after laborious and lengthy inter-party negotiations. In France, the Rassemblement National (RN – National Rally) failed to win enough seats to form a government and faced continued demonisation, but still acquired a pivotal role in the government negotiations that followed the elections.

The article proceeds as follows. First, we trace the circumstances leading up to the snap elections. We then revisit the political campaigns in both countries, highlighting how they were dominated by the personalities and themes of the far right. Finally, we offer comparative insights on the implications of these developments.

The article was published Open Access on July 1, 2025 in JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.