France legislative election: Voters across mainland France began casting ballots on Sunday in the first round of an exceptional parliamentary election that could put France’s government in the hands of nationalist, far-right parties for the first time since the Nazi era. The outcome of the two-round election, which will wrap up July 7, could impact European financial markets, Western support for Ukraine, and how France’s nuclear arsenal and global military force are managed.
Macron may lose elections
Many French voters are frustrated about inflation and economic concerns, as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership, which they see as arrogant and out-of-touch with their lives. Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally party has tapped and fueled that discontent, notably via online platforms like TikTok, and dominated all pre-election opinion polls.
A new coalition on the left, the New Popular Front, is also posing a challenge to the pro-business Macron and his centrist alliance Together for the Republic. There are 49.5 million registered voters who will choose 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, during the two-round voting.
Rising hate speech
After a blitz campaign marred by rising hate speech, voting began early in France’s overseas territories, and polling stations opened in mainland France at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) Sunday. The first polling projections are expected at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), when the final polling stations close, and early official results are expected later Sunday night. In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls already closed at 5 p.m. local time due to an 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew that authorities on the archipelago have extended until July 8.
Nine people died during a two-week-long unrest in New Caledonia, where the Indigenous Kanak people have long sought to break free from France, which first took the Pacific territory in 1853. Violence flared on May 13 in response to attempts by Macron’s government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists in New Caledonia, which Kanaks feared would further marginalize them.
Voters in France’s other overseas territories from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, French Polynesia and those voting in offices opened by embassies and consular posts across the Americas cast their ballots on Saturday.
Macron called the early election after his party was trounced in the European Parliament election earlier in June by the National Rally, which has historic ties to racism and antisemitism and is hostile toward France’s Muslim community. It was an audacious gamble that French voters who were complacent about the European Union election would be jolted into turning out for moderate forces in a national election to keep the far right out of power.
Instead, preelection polls suggest that the National Rally is gaining support and has a chance at winning a parliamentary majority. In that scenario, Macron would be expected to name 28-year-old National Rally President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in an awkward power-sharing system known as “cohabitation.”
(With inputs from agency)
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