France heads to polls for second round of legislative elections

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
19 Jun 2022 07:37

Macron's party may end up losing dozens of seats in France's national assembly in the second round of the elections on Sunday.

Voters enter a polling booth on June 27, 2021. (REUTERS)

French President Emmanuel Macron is in danger of failing to secure a parliamentary majority as voters head to the polls for the fourth time in two months on Sunday.

About 48.5 million registered voters in 572 run-off races across the country, with results expected after polls close at 8 p.m. Paris time on Sunday.

It is worth noting that the first round exposed a new alliance of the French left, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, adding pressure on Macron.

The big picture

Macron’s alliance won 345 seats in the national assembly in 2017. In order to secure an absolute majority, Macron is in need of 289 seats in the 577-seat lower house. Polls predicted that the President's centrist bloc may take anywhere between 255 to 295 seats, which means his results are not guaranteed.

Meanwhile, polls predict that his alliance will win between 265 and 305 seats, but by a much smaller margin than during his first term.

An Ipsos Sopra Steria poll found that roughly 46 percent of people want the left to win a majority with Melenchon as prime minister.

Pollsters predict that the NUPES, or the New Ecologic and Social People's Union, gathered by Jean-Luc Melenchon, will win 150 to 190 seats.

Le Pen's National Rally is expected to win 30 to 50 seats, a significant surge from its current eight seats

Round one of elections

The first round scored the lowest voter turnout in the history of France's Fifth Republic at 47.5%. The lowest turnout that happened prior to this date was recorded in 2017, at 48.3%.

Macron's Renaissance ruling bloc Ensemble! and the left-wing coalition garnered almost the same result in the first round, with 25.7% and 25.6% respectively.

In third place was Marine Le Pen's National Rally, with 18.7% of the vote while Republicans came in fourth place with 10.4%.

Eric Zemmour's Reconquete party garnered 4.2% of the vote, and the remaining parties could not pass the 4% mark.

The far-right stands to win up to 40 seats, compared with the eight it had won back in 2017. Le Pen is in need of 15 seats to form a formal group in Parliament.