Macron mania set to sweep polls
French President Emmanuel Macron meets people in Le Touquet, France, on Sunday after voting in the final round of the parliamentary elections. The French are choosing legislators for the National Assembly in the second round of elections expected to hand a huge majority to Mr Macron’s new centrist movement, allowing him to advance his pro-business, pro-European agenda.
Paris, June 18: French voters returned to the polls on Sunday for the second round of a parliamentary election, which President Emmanuel Macron’s youthful party is tipped to win by a landslide, completing his reset of national politics.
The Assembly is set to be transformed with a new generation of lawmakers — younger, more female and more ethnically diverse — winning seats in the afterglow of Macron’s success in last month’s presidential election. Mr Macron’s Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move, REM) and its allies are forecast to take 400-470 seats in the 577-member parliament, one of the biggest post-war majorities that would give the pro-EU president a free hand to implement his business-friendly programme.
The scale of the change is forecast to be so large that some observers have compared the overhaul to 1958, the start of the present presidential system, or even the post-war rebirth of French democracy in 1945.
It is also entirely unexpected: Mr Macron was unknown three years ago and initially given little chance of emerging as president, but he and his 16-month-old REM have tapped into widespread desire for change.
But despite the zest for renewal, the vote has failed to generate much excitement.
Official statistics showed turnout by mid-afternoon at 35.3 per cent, down sharply from the last election in 2012, revealing a degree of election fatigue after four votes in under two months.
Polls show Macron’s party party crushing France’s traditional parties, the rightwing Republicans and Socialists, but also the farright National Front of defeated presidential candidate Marine Le Pen which faces major disappointment.
Meanwhile, turnout in the second round of parliamentary elections in France on Sunday was sharply down on the figure in 2012 with three hours left to vote, the interior ministry said.
Pollsters predict the party will lose well over 200 seats after its five years in power under former president Francois Hollande, possibly leaving them with only around 20.
“People are tired of always seeing the same faces,” said Natacha Dumay, a 59-year-old teacher voting in the northeastern Paris suburb of Pantin where Socialist former justice minister Elisabeth Guigou was voted out recently. —AFP