Macron wins 10 of France’s foreign seats in first-round poll

EMMANUEL Macron’s party came top in 10 out of 11 constituencies for MPS representing French abroad as a new poll yesterday suggested the president is heading for the biggest parliamentary majority since Charles de Gaulle.

The results in the French expatriate ballot came ahead of Sunday’s firstround voting for the 566 other MPS in France. A second round is scheduled for June 18.

The Macron candidate for French nationals in Britain and Scandinavia won more than 50 per cent of the vote, far ahead of his rivals.

While these early results may not reflect the wider electorate, less than a month into his presidency the 39-yearold looks set to pull off his high-stakes bet to reshape French politics by winning what could well be an absolute majority in the National Assembly.

A large majority would give his government a strong mandate to drive through economic reforms, starting with a pro-business loosening of France’s notoriously rigid labour code.

There had been speculation that his fledgling La République en Marche (Republic on the Move, or REM) party, half of whose legislative candidates are political novices, would be unable to translate his triumph into a parliamentary majority.

But REM was predicted to score 29.5 per cent of the vote in the June 11 first round, according to an Ipsos Soprasteria poll yesterday – winning 385-415 seats out of 577 in the run-off.

The Right-wing Republicans had 22 per cent, former president François Hollande’s Socialist Party were a distant fifth with 8.5 per cent and Marine Le Pen’s Front National had 18 per cent.

“I expect Macron to get a very clear majority,” said Jerome Sainte-marie, a political scientist from Pollingvox.