The “National Rally” Marine Le Pen showed a triumphant result
Photo: REUTERS.
In France, the first round of early elections for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, has ended. Marine Le Pen’s nationwide rally, as expected, showed a triumphant result: according to exit polls, the far right won around 33% of the vote.
Macron’s coalition is only in third place (20%), in second place is the left-wing “New Popular Front” (28%). Now the Lepenites have a good chance of winning a majority in parliament.
The French took these elections so seriously that turnout exceeded a record of more than forty years in a two-round system. 69.6% of voters voted (in 2022, only 47.5%).
Marine Le Pen, immediately after the preliminary results were announced, declared with glee: “Democracy has spoken! The Macronist bloc has been virtually destroyed.”
And Macron’s first reaction to the defeat was to ask politicians from other camps to unite around him for the second round. But who would want to voluntarily become political suicide?
The French are fed up with the behavior of Europe’s “main hawk”, who wants to become more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians themselves, at the expense of the citizens of his country, figuratively speaking, eating the last dry croissant.
Macron and his wife at a polling station.
Photo: REUTERS.
HOW ELECTIONS WORK
Elections to the National Assembly are held in two rounds in single-member constituencies. A candidate wins under two conditions at once: if he receives at least half of the votes of those who turned out at the polling stations and at least 25% of the votes of all registered voters.
It is not easy to achieve such a result, which is why, according to the results of the first round of the last elections in 2022, only five people entered parliament. But all analysts look at the percentage of votes of the representatives of a certain political association: the parties will reach the finish line in the same order in the second round.
By the way, if we take the example of the elections two years ago again, the Macronists in the second round improved their result compared to the first by 12.82%, and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally lost 1.3 %…
The runoff (scheduled for July 7) includes the top two candidates and those who received at least 12.5% of the votes of all registered voters. Well, the winner will be the one who shows the best result.
It is interesting that if suddenly two of the leading candidates finish the second round with the same “score”, the one with the highest score will receive the mandate.
In the electoral colleges of France.
Photo: REUTERS.
HOW MANY SEATS WILL THE FAR RIGHT GET IN PARLIAMENT?
In this situation, based on the results of the first round, Elabe sociologists predict that the National Rally will obtain 260 to 310 seats out of 577, meaning that it could receive an absolute majority of 289 seats.
The Left Union has between 115 and 145 seats. The presidential coalition will definitively lose its majority and will only be able to claim between 90 and 120 seats, compared to the current 245.
According to estimates by another research institute, Ifop, the National Rally will occupy 240 to 270 seats, the New Popular Front 180 to 200 seats, and the presidential camp 60 to 90 seats.
Macron greeted his voters.
Photo: REUTERS.
WHY DID MACRO ANNOUNCE EARLY VOTING?
Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called for early elections after his supporters suffered a crushing defeat in the European Parliament elections. Half as many French people voted for Macron’s Renaissance party and its satellites as for the far-right National Rally party. The leader of this party’s list, Marine Le Pen, was the young, precocious (she is 28 years old) and highly charismatic Jordan Bardella.
The winners of the far-right parliamentary elections will appoint Jordan Bardella as prime minister.
Photo: REUTERS.
Macron, according to experts, came up with a cunning plan.
The far-right that won the parliamentary elections will nominate Bardella as prime minister. Macron will remain in the presidency until 2027. He hopes that in the rest of the time Bardella will not be able to cope with the job of prime minister and that the shadow of his shame will fall on all Lepenovites. Taking into account that the young politician is emerging as a far-right candidate in the presidential elections, it is very important for Macron to take him down.
But Jordan Bardella is not certain to make a mistake, which is why many of his party colleagues are even comparing the risk the French president is running to Russian roulette.
