PARIS (AP) — Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s resurgent National Rally, cast her first round of snap legislative elections called after her party swept past French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc in European Parliament elections.
Highly unpopular President Macron decided to dissolve parliament in a major gamble that could bring France’s far-right to power for the first time since World War II.
The two rounds of voting will determine who will become prime minister and which party will control France’s lower house of parliament.
This is breaking news. See AP’s previous coverage below.
PARIS (AP) — Voters in mainland France began casting their ballots Sunday in the first round of the country’s elections. Unprecedented parliamentary elections This could put the French government in the hands of a far-right nationalist party for the first time since the Nazi era.
The results of the two elections, which end on July 7, could have an impact on European financial markets. Western support for Ukraineand France Nuclear Weapons and Global Military Power will be managed.
Many French voters are frustrated by inflation, economic uncertainty and the leadership of President Emmanuel Macron, whom they see as arrogant and out of touch with their lives. Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration Rally National party has stoked that discontent, particularly through online platforms like TikTok, leading all pre-election opinion polls.
A new left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front, is also challenging pro-business President Macron and the centrist Together for the Republic coalition.
More than 50 countries will hold elections in 2024
There are 49.5 million registered voters who elect 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s powerful lower house, in two rounds of voting.
After a blitzkrieg campaign goes awry The rise of hate speechVoting began early in French overseas territories, while polling stations in mainland France opened at 8am on Sunday (6am GMT). The first results will be announced when the last polling station closes at 8pm GMT (7pm GMT), with early official results expected to be published late on Sunday night.
The vote took place during the first week of the country’s traditional summer holiday, and Interior Ministry figures showed the number of absentee ballot requests was at least five times higher than in the 2022 election.
Voters who took to the polls in Paris in person on Sunday had a host of issues on their minds, from immigration to inflation and the rising cost of living, amid deepening divisions between the far right and far left and an increasingly unpopular and weak president in centrist politics.
“People don’t like what’s going on,” said Paris voter Cynthia Justin, 44. “People feel like they’ve lost a lot in the last few years. People are angry. I’m angry.”
She added that with the “increase in hate speech,” people need to voice their dissatisfaction with those who hold or seek power and vote.
“This is important to me because I’m a woman and we haven’t always had the right to vote,” Justine said. “And because I’m a Black woman, this is even more important. There’s a lot at stake on this day.”
Pierre Leclerc, a 78-year-old retiree, said he voted simply to “avoid the worst”, which for him was “a far-right, populist, non-liberal, non-republican government”.
Macron said: Early elections It was a bold gamble to sway French voters, who had been pleased with the European elections, to vote for a moderate in national elections to keep the far right out of power, after his party suffered a crushing defeat in the European Parliament elections earlier this month to the Rally National, a party with historical ties to racism and anti-Semitism and hostile to France’s Muslim community.
Instead, pre-election polls suggest his party is gaining support and could win a majority in parliament, a scenario in which Macron is expected to nominate its leader, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, as prime minister under a tricky power-sharing system known as “coexistence.”
In the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls closed at 5pm local time for voting which took place from 8pm to 6am. Archipelago authorities extend curfew Until July 8th.
Nine people have been killed in two weeks of unrest in New Caledonia, where the indigenous Kanak people have long sought liberation from France, which first occupied the Pacific territory in 1853. It was set on fire on May 13 in response to an attempted attack. Macron’s government plans to amend the French constitution and change New Caledonia’s voter rolls, but the Kanaks fear this will lead to further marginalisation of them.
Voters in other French overseas territories, including Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and French Polynesia, cast their ballots on Saturday, as well as those who voted in offices opened by embassies and consulates across the Americas.
Macron has said he will not step down as president until his term expires in 2027. Living together will weaken him Both domestically and globally.
The results of the first round of voting will indicate the overall sentiment of voters, but not necessarily the overall makeup of the next Diet. Complex voting systems, And parties will be working between the two elections to forge alliances in some constituencies and withdraw from others.
In the past, such tactical maneuvers have helped thwart far-right candidates from taking power, but now support for Le Pen’s party runs deep and spreads widely.
Bardella said: No governance experiencehas said he would use his powers as prime minister to stop Macron from continuing to supply Ukraine with long-range weapons for a war with Russia, and his party has historical ties to Russia.
The party also questions the right of French-born people to citizenship and wants to restrict the rights of French citizens with dual citizenship, which critics say violates fundamental human rights and is a threat to France’s democratic ideals.
meanwhile, Huge public expenditure The promises of the National Rally, and particularly the left-wing coalition, rattled markets and raised concerns about France’s high debt load. Already criticised by EU watchdog groups.
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Surk contributed from Nice, France.
See AP’s election coverage here https://apnews.com/hub/global-elections
