By Barbara Surk and Helena Alves | Associated Press
PARIS — France’s high-stakes legislative elections propelled the far-right National Rally to a strong but not decisive lead in the first-round vote Sunday, polling agencies projected, dealing another slap to centrist President Emmanuel Macron after his risky decision to call voters back to the polls for the second time in three weeks.
French polling agencies indicated that Macron’s grouping of centrist parties could finish a distant third in the first-round ballot. Their projections put Macron’s camp behind both Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and a new left-wing coalition of parties that joined forces to keep her anti-immigration party with historical links to antisemitism from being able to form the first far-right government in France since World War II.
But with another torrid week of campaigning to come before the decisive final voting next Sunday, the election’s ultimate outcome remained uncertain.
Macron urged voters to rally against the far right in the second round of balloting.
Le Pen called on voters to give the National Rally an “absolute majority” in parliament. She said a National Rally majority would enable the far right to form a new government with party President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in order to work on France’s “recovery.”
Projections by polling agencies suggest the National Rally stands a good chance of winning a majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time, with an estimated one-third of the first-round vote, nearly double their 18% in the first round in 2022. The party is building on its success in European elections that prompted Macron to dissolve parliament and call the surprise vote. The second round will be decisive but leaves open huge questions on how Macron will share power with a prime minister who is hostile to most of his policies.
The elections could affect European financial markets, Western support for Ukraine and the management of France’s nuclear arsenal and global military force.
Many French voters are frustrated about inflation and other economic concerns, as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership, seen as arrogant and out-of-touch with their lives. Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally party has tapped that discontent, notably via online platforms like TikTok, and led in pre-election opinion polls.
A new coalition on the left, the New Popular Front, also poses a challenge to the pro-business Macron and his centrist alliance Together for the Republic. It includes the French Socialists and Communists, the Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed party and vows to reverse an unpopular pension reform law that raised the retirement age to 64, among other economic reforms.
There are 49.5 million registered voters who will choose the 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament.
Turnout stood at an unusually high 59% three hours before polls closed. That’s 20 percentage points higher than turnout at the same time in the last first-round vote in 2022.
Some pollsters suggested the high turnout could temper the outcome for the National Rally, possibly indicating voters made an extra effort to cast ballots …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
