France’s far-right National Rally party edged ahead in the first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to polling agency projections, bringing it closer to forming a government in the runoff and dealing a blow to centrist President Emmanuel Macron’s risky decision to call a surprise vote.
When he dissolved the National Assembly on June 9 following a heavy defeat at the hands of the National Rally in France’s vote for the European Parliament, Macron was betting that the anti-immigration party with historic ties to anti-Semitism would not repeat that success when the very fate of France was at stake.
But that was not the case. After French polls projected the National Rally and its allies had won roughly a third of the national vote on Sunday, Macron’s prime minister warned that France could end up with its first far-right government since World War II if voters do not unite to thwart that scenario in the second round next Sunday.
“The far right is on the verge of power,” declared Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. He twice described the political promises of the National Rally as “disastrous” and said that in the second round “not a single vote should go to the National Rally. France does not deserve that.”
French polling agencies project Macron’s centrist coalition to come a distant third in the first round of voting, behind the National Rally and a new coalition of left-wing parties that joined forces to prevent him from winning power.
Winning a parliamentary majority would allow Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, to install her 28-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella, as prime minister, and would cap her years of work to make her party less unpalatable to mainstream voters. Le Pen inherited the party, then called the National Front, from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has been convicted many times of inciting racist and anti-Semitic hatred.
The National Rally has not yet achieved its goal, however. With another torrid week of campaigning still to come before the decisive final vote on Sunday, the final outcome of the election remains uncertain.
Addressing a jubilant crowd waving French flags, Le Pen called on supporters and voters who did not back her party in the first round to push her to win and secure a commanding legislative majority. If that happens, Bardella and Macron would be forced into an uneasy power-sharing arrangement. Macron, first elected in 2017, has said he will not step down before his second term expires in 2027.
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2024-07-02 04:52:42