PARIS, June 12, 2022 (AFP) – In the first round of the French legislative election on Sunday, the alliance of the left without a parliamentary majority and President Emmanuel Macron’s centre, won about 25 percent of the vote. votes. Votes on each of them based on initial guesses.

These elections are crucial for Macron, who was re-elected for a five-year term on April 24 and needs an absolute majority to smoothly implement his liberal line program, such as raising the retirement age from 62 to 65.

But for the first time in 25 years, the main left parties – ecologists, communists, socialists and Capitulationist France (radical left) – decided to run on a united front led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

According to opinion polls conducted after the polls closed, Macron’s Juntos alliance would receive between 25% and 25.8% of the vote, while the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (Nupes) would reach between 25% and 26.2%.

The French electoral system makes it difficult to predict results. Voters must elect deputies from their constituencies, for a total of 577, in a two-round anonymous system.

But according to opinion polls, forces supporting the president after the June 19 vote will win 260 to 310 seats, followed by Nupes (150 to 220). The absolute majority is 289 deputies.

Mobilization was critical to the ultimate balance of power, especially when voters on the radical left and far right were more likely to abstain. According to estimates, abstention was a little more than half.

scenarios

However, Mélenchon, a 70-year-old veteran politician who narrowly missed the second round of the presidential election with almost 22 percent of the vote, is pursuing what he sees as a “third round” revenge to thwart Macron. implement the liberal project.

He was re-elected for the left in April, not because of his presidential program, but because he voted for him to prevent French far-right rival Marine Le Pen from coming to power under the so-called “republican front”.

Faced with the advance of Nupes and the prospect of losing an absolute majority, the 44-year-old French president entered the campaign at the final stage to demand a “strong and clear majority” in the face of “extremism”.

After the runoff on June 19, the country will find out whether Macron, with more than 289 deputies, has the full confidence of the French, will be forced to negotiate with a relative majority or will have to rule in “coexistence”. .

Dominique Rousseau, professor of constitutional law at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University, explains that in the second scenario, “it would no longer determine the policy of the nation, but the majority in the Assembly and the prime minister who left it.”

France already knows the terms, with a government and a president of different political leanings. The last cohabitation took place from 1997 to 2002, when conservative president Jacques Chirac appointed socialist Lionel Jospin as prime minister.

Like Jospin, who led the Left Plural alliance in the 1997 legislative election, Mélenchon hopes to become head of government. In the words of the Minister of Economy, the idea that the French Chavez is in power worries the ruling party.

Unlike the presidential election, the far-right – divided – does not reach the legislature in a strong position beyond its strongholds in the north and southeast of the country. And the traditional right-wing Republicans are gambling with their future after a bad result in April.

According to polls, Le Pen’s party would win between 10 and 45 seats, behind the Republicans (33 to 80 MPs). Éric Zemmour’s far-right Reconquista party can enter parliament with a maximum of 3 deputies.

While purchasing power seemed to be the main concern in the context of rising prices due to the war in Ukraine, the campaign was dominated by several controversies over police actions, such as the Champions League final at the Stade de France.