At first glance, the elections in the UK and France might not seem all that similar. The British General Election was not much of a contest, while in France the campaign had all the features of a political drama. In the UK, the situation under a Labour government will be very much business as usual, while in France it is unlikely that there will be a return to the status-quo ante. But there is one major phenomenon the two nations have in common.

Both Britain and France are afflicted with the scourge of ‘negative voting’. In the UK, citizens were constantly incited to vote against the Conservative Party. In France, the public was instructed to vote for anyone but Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN).

Negative voting was hugely impactful in France. All parties of the left and centre ganged up against the RN, with candidates stepping down after the first round of elections last month to consolidate the anti-RN vote. After the second round of elections over the weekend, the RN received the largest share of the vote (37.1 per cent), but only gained 142 seats in the French National Assembly. In contrast, the leftist coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP), received 26.3 per cent of the vote, but managed to secure 188 seats. Even President Macron’s centrist alliance, Ensemble, managed to win more seats than the RN. It received 161 seats, despite only winning 24.7 per cent of the vote. To put matters in perspective, the British Labour Party managed to win 412 parliamentary seats with a lower share of the vote than the RN, with 34 per cent to Le Pen’s 37 per cent.