Ballot could see Marine Le Pen\u2019s National Rally form government as polls suggest support for far-right party has strengthened
\nFrance
\nVoters in France are heading to the polls in the first round of high stakes, snap parliamentary elections that could lead to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen forming a government in a historic first.
\nWhile polls suggest support for Le Pen\u2019s far-right, anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) has strengthened in recent days, the outcome of the two-round election, called three weeks ago by the president, Emmanuel Macron, following the crushing defeat of his allies in the European parliamentary elections, remains highly uncertain.
\nBy noon on Sunday, voter turnout across France stood at 25.9% \u2013 a surge of 7.5% compared with the 2022 elections, according to the interior ministry. Among those who turned up to cast their ballots was Le Pen. \u201cVoted!\u201d she wrote on social media.
\nOne poll carried out for Les Echos newspaper suggested that the RN was on course to win 37% of the national vote, up two points from more than a week ago, while another poll carried out for BFM TV estimated the far-right party could win between 260 and 295 seats \u2013 potentially giving it an outright majority among France\u2019s 577 constituencies.
\nPolls suggest the New Popular Front (NFP), a broad but fragile leftwing alliance, could receive 28% of the vote while Macron\u2019s centrist bloc trails behind at 20%.
\nOfficial campaigning for the first-round vote ended at midnight on Friday. Following Sunday\u2019s vote, campaigning will resume on Monday for a further five days before voters are called back to the polls for a final, decisive second-round ballot on 7 July.
\nMuch could change in the five days between rounds, particularly if candidates embrace tactical alliances and withdrawals in order to block the far-right from winning a majority.
\nIn recent days, candidates from the leftwing coalition and Macron\u2019s centrist alliance have scrambled to remind voters that the RN, launched in the early 1970s as the National Front, once included in its ranks former members of a Waffen-SS military unit under Nazi command during the second world war.
\nThe party was long seen as rife with antisemitic, homophobic and racist views, and widely regarded as a danger to democracy that needed to be kept out of mainstream politics. While Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie Le Pen\u2019s daughter, has spent much of the past decade working to soften the party\u2019s image, its core message remains one of deep hostility to immigration and the so-called Islamisation of society.
\nThe party has vowed to drastically slash immigration and bar dual nationals from certain state jobs, along with promises to cut taxes on energy, exempt people under the age of 30 from income tax and work towards abolishing Macron\u2019s pension reform.
\nAhead of Sunday\u2019s first round, Le Pen urged voters to go out and vote. \u201cVictory is within our grasp, so let\u2019s seize this historic opportunity and get out and vote!\u201d she wrote on social media.
\nMost analysts suggest the most likely outcome is a polarised parliament, where consensus between the larger far-right and leftwing blocs, and a smaller number of Macron\u2019s allies would be nearly impossible, leading to political paralysis.
\nIf the RN wins a majority, the party chief, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen\u2019s 28-year-old protege who has no governing experience, could become prime minister in a fraught cohabitation with Macron.
\nThe result could pit the two men \u2013 who have vastly different visions of France\u2019s future \u2013 against each other. One example is France\u2019s strong support for Ukraine, championed by Macron since Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion. Bardella has said he would use his powers as prime minister to stop Macron from continuing to supply long-range weapons to Ukraine.
\nFollowing Sunday\u2019s first-round vote, Macron is planning to convene a government meeting to decide the further course of action, government sources told AFP.
\nThe president\u2019s shock decision to call parliamentary elections has sparked dissent among his allies and cast Europe\u2019s second-biggest economy into uncertainty. Even so, Macron has stood by his decision, reportedly hoping it will force voters to confront whether they are ready to allow the far-right to tighten its grip on power.
\nIn the lead-up to Sunday\u2019s first round vote, Macron sought to hammer home this point, warning that France risked being plunged into a \u201ccivil war\u201d if either of his \u201cextreme\u201d opponents won a majority.
\nThe president has insisted he will serve out the remainder of his second term until 2027, regardless of which party wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ballot could see Marine Le Pen\u2019s National Rally form government as polls suggest support for far-right party has strengthened France Voters in France are heading to the polls in the first round of high stakes, snap parliamentary elections that could lead to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen forming a government in a historic …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":66700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66724,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66711\/revisions\/66724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}