The turnout in the first round of parliamentary elections in the morning had not been this high for more than forty years.
Due to the method of election, the outcome is determined by the turnout rate: citizens can only vote for individual candidates, and to achieve a certain victory in the first round a candidate must obtain 50 percent plus one vote. If no one makes it in any district, all candidates who received 12.5 percent of registered voters and at least 25 percent of the vote can run in next Sunday's runoff. The more people vote, the greater the chance that three candidates will advance, now perhaps in more than a hundred seats, in about 20 percent of constituencies.
Polls expect turnout to exceed 60 percent by the evening, which could also be a multi-decade record.
In the two-round National Assembly elections, the second of which will be held next Sunday, more than 49 million voters will elect 577 members of the House of Representatives of Parliament for a five-year term.
More than a million voters living in France's overseas departments cast their ballots on Saturday, with polling stations in the home country opening at 8 a.m. Polls close at 6 p.m. in smaller voting areas, and you can vote until 8 p.m. in larger cities.
President Emmanuel Macron cast his vote in the resort of Le Touquet in northern France in the early afternoon, and Marine Le Pen, the most prominent opposition politician, also cast her vote in the town of Henin-Beaumont in northern France.
Two polls published by Ifop and Odoxa on Friday
Between 35 and 37 percent showed support for Marine Le Pen's national consumption before the radical left, the communists, the Greens and the socialists formed by the new left alliance called the Popular Front, of which 27-29 could have been counted on if you were eliminated.
While President Emmanuel Macron's camp could get 20.5-21%, the center-right Republicans could reach 8%.
The main stake in the vote is whether the National Pact will become the largest parliamentary party for the first time in its existence, and whether it will be able to obtain the majority necessary to govern. In this case, a so-called joint political tenancy is formed, that is, Emmanuel Macron and the government presented by his opposition will lead the country together. There have been three examples of this so far in the history of the Fifth Republic, which began in 1958, and between 1986 and 1988, then between 1993 and 1995 during the era of the late leftist head of state, François Mitterrand, and between 1997 and 1997. And 2002 during the era of the late right-wing president Jacques Chirac.
There is even the possibility of an institutional crisis after the second round, after Jordan Bardella, head of the National Covenant Party and candidate for prime minister, has repeatedly confirmed that he will not take over the government unless his party obtains an absolute majority in the National Council. crowd. During the election campaign, the hostility between the three major political blocs intensified to the point that at present no camp officially wants to cooperate with the other two blocs.
President Emmanuel Macron called the election just three weeks after his party was thrashed in the European Parliament elections. The presidential camp had enjoyed only a relative majority in the National Assembly for the past two years, and had to form coalitions from time to time to pass laws; budget and pension reforms were deemed acceptable without a vote on an article of the constitution.
Cover image credit: Pierre Crome/Getty Images
