Macron set for emphatic parliament win
FRANCE: French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party claimed a sweeping victory in yesterday’s first round of elections to the National Assembly, despite a historically low turnout.
La Republique en Marche (The Republic on the Move, LREM) and its allies took 32.3 per cent of the vote.
Polling firms Kantar Publiconepoint predicted that LREM and its centrist allies would take 400 to 440 of the assembly’s 577 seats after next Sunday’s (local time) second round of runoff votes.
That result would enable Macron to win approval for his government lineup and push his liberalising programme through parliament despite expected opposition from the Left.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that despite an abstention rate estimated at just over 50 per cent, ‘‘the message of the French people is unambiguous’’.
‘‘For the third time in a row, millions of you have confirmed your support for the president of the republic’s policy of renewal, unity and reconquest,’’ Philippe said.
The vote comes just over a month after 39-year-old Macron became the youngest president of France, beating far-right leader Marine Le Pen by 66 per cent to 34 per cent in a runoff vote.
Le Pen and other opposition figures chose instead to highlight the abstention rate, which the National Front leader described as ‘‘catastrophic’’, calling on ‘‘patriots’’ to turn out ‘‘massively’’ in next Sunday’s second round, which will fill most of the assembly’s seats.
Le Pen’s party took a disappointing 13.2 per cent, well below her 21.3 per cent of the presidential first-round vote. Her hopes of a parliamentary breakthrough appeared to have been dashed, with Kantar Public-onepoint predicting only one to four seats for the far-right party.
‘‘The Assembly needs deputies who are genuinely opposed to the political catastrophe Emmanuel Macron is preparing for us,’’ Le Pen said, accusing the president of wanting to ‘‘lay waste’’ to the country’s labour code and allow mass immigration.
The centre-right Les Republicains and allies were likely to form the main opposition bloc, with 21.6 per cent of the vote going to the broad centre-right.
But with Macron’s centrists sweeping the boards, the centreright was still forecast to lose between a quarter and almost half their seats, returning with 95 to 132 deputies.
Les Republicains election chief Francois Baroin appealed to middle-class and rural voters to choose his party in the second round, saying it would safeguard them against tax rises or cuts to public services in the countryside.
Macron had thrown Les Republicains off balance by nominating two high-profile party members, Philippe and Bruno Le Maire, as his prime minister and economy minister.
The election’s biggest loser, however, was the Socialist Party of Macron’s predecessor as president, Francois Hollande. The Socialists and other centre-left candidates took only 9.5 per cent of the vote and are likely to take 15-25 seats, down from their majority of 292 in the last parliament, according to Kantar Public-onepoint.
Socialist secretary general Jean-christope Cambadelis warned of an ‘‘almost complete lack of real opposition’’ if LREM’S majority was confirmed in the second round of voting.
The result was also disappointing for radical leftist Jean-luc Melenchon, who had hoped for a parliamentary breakthrough on the back of his 19.6 per cent vote in the presidential election. But his La France Insoumise took only 11 per cent, and Kantar Public-onepoint forecast 13 to 23 seats for it and the Communist Party combined. Melenchon too focused on the high abstention rate in a short election night speech.
’’The immense rate of abstention shows that there is no majority in the country to destroy the labour code or reduce civil liberties. But neither does the country believe that it is possible to do things differently.’’
The Interior Ministry’s figures showed that only three candidates were elected outright in the first round, with the remaining 574 seats to be decided by runoff votes next Sunday. – DPA