Macron eyes big parliamentary win
Low voter turnout in 2nd round of French legislature election
Voters turned out in low numbers on Sunday in the second round of France’s parliamentary election, where President Emmanuel Macron is expected to win a landslide majority that should allow him to embark on far- reaching pro- business reforms.
The vote comes just a month after the 39- year- old former banker became the youngest head of state in modern French history, promising to clean up French politics and revive the euro zone’s second- biggest economy.
Macron’s centrist Republic on the Move ( LREM) party is little more than a year old, yet pollsters project it will win as many as 75 to 80 percent of the seats in the 577- seat lower house.
Turnout, though, was on course for a record low, a sign of voter fatigue after seven months of campaigning and voting - and also of disillusionment and anger with politics that could eventually complicate Macron’s reform drive.
Interior Ministry data showed turnout reached 17.75 percent by 12: 00 pm, its lowest ever at that time of day for a second round of parliamentary elections since at least 1997.
“People know it’s already a done deal,” Alex Mpoy, a 38- year- old security guard told Reuters, echoing the apathy of many voters who intend to abstain.
Macron cast his vote early in the morning in the seaside resort of Le Touquet before flying to a ceremony outside Paris to mark the anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s 1940 appeal for French resistance to Nazi Germany’s occupation.
Polls show Macron is on course to win the biggest parliamentary majority since de Gaulle’s own conservatives in 1968.
Many of Macron’s lawmakers will be political novices, something which will change the face of parliament at the expense of the conservative and socialist parties that have ruled France for decades.
One of the challenges for Macron will be to keep such a diverse and politically raw group of lawmakers united behind him, as he sets out to overhaul labor rules, cut tens of thousands of publicsector jobs and invest billions in areas like job training and renewable energy.
“There has never been such a paradox between a high concentration of power and strong tensions and expectations in terms of changes,” Laurent Berger, head of France’s CFDT union, told the weekly Journal du Dimanche.