Legislative Elections France 2022: The French decide whether to give Emmanuel Macron an absolute majority in Congress

The French voted this Sunday to decide whether to facilitate the second term of the centrist president Emmanuel Macron with a new absolute majority of deputies, at the end of several months of electoral marathon.

Polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. (06:00 GMT) and will close at 6:00 p.m., except in large cities where voting will take place until 8:00 p.m. The results will be known after 8:00 p.m.

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In total, 48.7 million French people are registered on the electoral register, but abstention is very likely to exceed 50%, as happened in the first round.

However, at noon, participation was 18.99%, slightly higher than the 18.43% in the first round.

The result of the second round of the legislative elections is key for Macron, re-elected on April 24 for five more years, to be able to apply his liberal reformist programsuch as the delay in retirement age from 62 to 65 years.

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Its main rival is the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), the first left-wing front in 25 years that brings together the radical left, environmentalists, communists and socialists. Its leader is the veteran politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The left posed the elections as a “third round” of the presidential election, considering that the French voted in the ballot for the centrist to prevent the coming to power of his far-right rival Marine LePen, and not for their ideas.

His goal is to wrest the majority from Macron and force him to appoint Prime Minister melenchon. Nupes seeks with this “cohabitation” to stop the president’s program and apply its own, such as raising the minimum wage to 1,500 euros net per month.

The latest polls, however, rule out that last scenario, but predict that the center alliance ¡Juntos! de Macron could lose the absolute majority in Parliament, forcing him to seek allies to carry out his reforms.

¡Together! it would achieve between 255 and 305 deputies, followed by Nupes (140 to 200), the right-wing party Los Republicanos and its UDI allies (50 to 80) and Le Pen’s National Group (RN, extreme right) (20 to 50). Most sit at 289.

The election day started badly for the presidential field since on the island of Guadeloupe, in the French Antilles, the Secretary of State for the Sea, Justine Benin, was defeated by a leftist candidate and will have to resign from the government.

In the overseas territories, the left obtained at least eight deputies.

The abstention is announced to be decisive, especially when less than half of the voters voted in the first round of the legislative elections held last week. The trend should be confirmed this Sunday.

“I expect absolutely nothing from politicians, because I no longer trust them. They have taken us for a ride,” she told AFP Marie-Olga on Saturday, as she turned out to vote for “civic duty” on the Caribbean island of Martinique.

“Solid Majority”

Sunday’s vote closes a crucial election cycle for France’s direction over the next five years. The next electoral appointment will be the elections to the European Parliament in 2024, two years in which the parties will be able to settle the ongoing recomposition.

The emergence of the centrist Macron in 2017 it shook up the French political chessboard, which is now divided into three main blocs – radical left, center and extreme right – leaving aside the traditional government parties.

After the debacle in the presidential election, the Socialist Party (PS) decided to join the front led by melenchondespite the discontent of their former leaders, and the Republicans, weakened, hope to be key to weaving majorities with Macron in Parliament.

The far-right party Le Pen On the other hand, his desire to make a firm opposition to the president has already advanced and, for this, he could manage to form his own parliamentary group for the first time since 1986, according to the polls, thus gaining weight.

Although negotiation is common in most democracies in the absence of a stable majority in Parliament, the adoption of laws would become a headache for the ruling party in France, accustomed to pulling out the steamroller.

In the final stretch of the campaign, Macron’s alliance warned of the chaos that would entail having to govern with a simple majority and, above all, of the “danger” that the arrival of the leftist front to power would entail.

On his return from a trip to Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron he advocated a “truly European France”, after accusing his Nupes opponents of wanting to leave the European Union (EU) –something they deny–, and called for a “solid majority”.

The French must vote for the candidate of their constituency –577 in total–, in a two-round uninominal system that makes projections difficult. In the first round, a deputy from Together! and 4 of the Nupes already achieved their seats.

For members of the French government who are running for a seat, including Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, the elections represent a double challenge, because they will have to resign if they lose, according to an unwritten rule.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.