(Paris) The French were strongly mobilized on Sunday for the second round of historic legislative elections, from which the far-right party could emerge victorious but without an absolute majority in the Assembly, which risks paralysis.
The turnout was up Sunday at 6 a.m. (Eastern time) to 26.63%, the highest figure for a legislative election since those of 1981 (28.3%), which brought the left to power.
The country is grappling with a poisonous atmosphere, marked by insults, physical attacks on candidates and poster hangers, and the release of racist and anti-Semitic speech.
Faced with possible disturbances on Sunday evening, 30,000 police officers will be mobilized, including 5,000 in Paris.
“There is a lot of tension, people are going crazy,” commented Laurence Abbad, a 66-year-old retiree in Tourcoing (North), who fears violence in the evening after the results are announced.
PHOTO MOHAMMED BADRA, REUTERS
A woman casts her ballot in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, northern France.
A few kilometres away, in Lille, Cécile Artis, a 59-year-old senior executive, is worried about “the polarisation of public opinion”, while in the small town of Rosheim near Strasbourg (East), Antoine Schrameck, a 72-year-old retiree, says he is “anxious”: “We are at a turning point in the history of the Republic”.
Tightening of the three blocks
Polling stations opened Sunday at 2 a.m. (Eastern time) in mainland France, while voters in Saint Pierre and Miquelon (North Atlantic), Guyana, the Antilles, as well as Polynesia and New Caledonia in the South Pacific had already voted on Saturday.
In major metropolitan cities, they will remain open until 2 p.m. ET, when the first estimates are released.
The first results have been released in some overseas territories, which do not in any way suggest a national trend. In Guadeloupe, the four independent and left-wing outgoing deputies regained their seats. In Martinique and Guyana, the left won.
President Emmanuel Macron plunged France into the unknown by deciding on June 9 to dissolve the National Assembly after its debacle in the European elections.
PHOTO MOHAMMED BADRA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
President Emmanuel Macron voted in Le Touquet, in northern France.
In the first round, the French put the far-right National Rally (RN) party – and its allies from the right-wing Republicans party – largely in the lead (33%), ahead of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP, 28%), and the centre-right presidential camp (20%).
On Friday, the polls seemed to show a tightening between the three blocs: the extreme right would obtain between 170 and 210 seats in the second round, for an absolute majority set at 289 deputies. They would be closely followed by the NFP (155 to 185), followed by the Macronists (95 to 125).
“Populist temptations”
But the pollsters were showing a certain caution, because no one knows what force will benefit from the very high turnout.
“Around fifty constituencies are being decided by a hair’s breadth,” said the deputy president of the Ipsos polling institute, Brice Teinturier.
More than 200 candidates from the left and the centre have withdrawn, dozens of three-way contests, which seemed favourable to the RN at the end of the first round, have suddenly turned into much tighter duels.
“Today the danger is a majority dominated by the extreme right and that would be a catastrophic project,” warned Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, head of the presidential camp’s campaign.
The leader of the far right, Marine Le Pen, denounced the maneuvers of a “single party” of “those who want to retain power against the will of the people.”
If she succeeds in her bet and obtains a sufficient majority, it is her protégé Jordan Bardella, 28, who would enter Matignon with a strong anti-immigration program. It would be the first government from the extreme right in France since the Second World War.
PHOTO CHRISTOPHE ENA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and party leader Jordan Bardella
The hypothesis has raised fears among some of France’s major European partner countries, worried about seeing a Eurosceptic party known to be close to Vladimir Putin’s Russia come to power in one of the pillars of the European Union.
Without citing any country in particular, Pope Francis warned on Sunday against “ideological and populist temptations.”
The uncertainty is such that Gabriel Attal has declared that his government is ready to ensure the continuity of the state “as long as necessary”. That is, to deal with current affairs while waiting for the formation of a new team, while Paris hosts the Olympic Games in three weeks.
Asked about a possible speech by the head of state after 8 p.m., his entourage told AFP that “nothing had been decided” for the moment and “everything [dépendrait] results “.
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