More than 49 million French voters are eligible to vote just three weeks after the European elections, in which the far-right National Rally (RN) party won by a landslide, triggering a political earthquake on French soil.
On June 9, President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called the new legislative elections, which will have the second round on July 7, a decision that he argued with the purpose of putting the path to follow in the hands of the people.
Tomorrow, three political camps will seek an absolute majority in the Assembly, at least 289 of its 577 deputies: RN, the bloc of left-wing forces New Popular Front, made up of socialists, rebels, communists and environmentalists, and the ruling party, represented by the ruling party Renaissance and its allies.
If one of the two main opposition options succeeds in its goal of dominating the lower house, it could count on the post of prime minister, a scenario that would force Macron into an uncomfortable cohabitation in power, very rare since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
There are many rumours and reports that the president will resign in the event of another setback at the polls, a hypothesis that the head of state has categorically ruled out.
All the polls released between June 10 and yesterday gave an advantage to the extreme right, followed by the Popular Front, with the ruling party relegated to third position.
The eventual coming to power of the extreme right through a prime minister cohabiting with Macron worries many French people, but an important sector of them sees in RN the solution to the country’s problems, such as the loss of purchasing power and insecurity. .
The president and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal have insisted that only their camp guarantees stability, while calling the other favorite contenders “the extremes.”
Macron even evoked that a victory in the legislative elections of these alleged extremes, from the right or the left, would have consequences as dire as a civil war, a purpose that generated repudiation among opposition leaders.
The interest of French citizens in tomorrow’s elections is high, to the point that there could be the highest turnout this century in parliamentary elections, higher than the 64.4 percent registered in 2002.
A record has already been broken with the online vote of 410,000 French residents abroad, well behind the 250,000 who did so in 2022.
In the American continent and in French Polynesia, the legislative elections will take place today, the first results of which will begin to appear on Sunday when polling stations close in the metropolitan area, although the final data is expected to be available after 11:00 p.m. local time.
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