Voters cast their ballots at a polling station in Thiel, France, on June 30.
French President Emmanuel Macron (second from left) communicates with the public after the vote.
Bardra (centre), president of the National Rassemblement (NLD), votes at a polling station.
France held its first round of voting in the National Assembly election on June 30. Exit polls released that night showed the far-right National Alliance leading the way with 34 percent support, followed by the newly formed left-wing coalition New Popular Front with 28.1 percent of the vote, and the ruling coalition Together with 20.3 percent of the vote, coming in third.
According to French media reports, the turnout in this round ranged from 65.5 percent to 69.7 percent, the highest since 1988. The second round of voting is scheduled for 7 July, and it is too early to speculate on the composition of the new National Assembly, but the loss of the relative majority of seats by the ruling coalition is almost a foregone conclusion.
Call for a second round of voting to be blocked
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement sent to the media that night that the high turnout showed that the French wanted to "clarify the political situation." He called for the National League to be blocked in the second round of voting.
Le Pen, the leader of the National Alliance, was re-elected to the National Assembly in the first round of voting. In her public remarks, she called on voters to help the National Alliance secure an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
Macron's public opinion "gambles"
In the European Parliament elections held in early June, France's ruling Baath Party received a much lower share of the vote than the National Alliance, and Macron immediately announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and the early holding of new National Assembly elections. Public opinion believes that this is a "big gamble" of public opinion by Macron. For the first time since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958, far-right parties are likely to have a majority in the National Assembly.
France has 577 legislative constituencies, corresponding to 577 seats in the National Assembly. The election adopts a two-round voting system, in which the candidates receive more than half of the votes in the first round of voting, they are directly elected; If no candidate receives a majority of the votes, the candidate who receives the support of not less than 12.5% of the registered voters in the constituency proceeds to the second round of voting, where the candidate with the highest number of votes is elected. Those elected will serve a five-year term.
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The "Mbappe effect" voter turnout is at a 40-year high
After the first round of elections, Macron called on voters to form a "broader coalition" in the second round to block the right. However, some media believe that Macron's bet may be the opposite.
"Left" and "right" counteract
According to reports, the results of the exit polls after the first round of voting were basically in line with the results predicted before the vote, and supporters of the National Alliance cheered. However, the anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic National Alliance, has not yet made it clear whether it will engage in "left-right co-governance" with Macron's pro-European ruling coalition after the second round of voting.
The American political news website Politico reported that despite the victory of the National Alliance in the first round of voting, the party's leader Le Pen still has his eyes on the second round of the election.
"The French people have shown unequivocally that they are willing to turn the page after seven years of corrosive forces [leadership]," Le Pen said. But we haven't really won yet, and the second round of voting will be decisive. ”
The report pointed out that the chairman of the National Alliance, the "post-95" Baldela, who is considered likely to become the new French prime minister, did not criticize the ruling coalition after the first round of voting, but aimed at the left, which ranked second in the election.
Baldra called the left-wing coalition "New Popular Front" (NFP) "an existential threat to France" and that the alliance would open the French borders to migrants "without moral boundaries". "It's time to put power in the hands of leaders who understand you and care about you," Baldra said.
Politico said that the biggest loser on election night may be Macron. His centrist faction, which currently holds 250 seats in parliament, is expected to lose dozens of seats after this election.
And Macron does not admit defeat. In a statement, he welcomed the high turnout in this election (between 65.5 and 69.7 percent) and called for a "broad coalition" in the second round of voting. But his bet on early elections is expected to backfire, and his influence on French politics is "rapidly waning."
According to the report, Macron appears to be betting that in order to prevent the far right from coming to power, his supporters will be mobilized and the mission of the ruling coalition will be strengthened. But Macron underestimated the far right and the left, and despite the deep differences between the two factions, to a certain extent, the two factions were able to unite by opposing Macron.
Call on young people to vote
The high turnout in the first round of the French parliamentary election is partly due to the celebrity effect. Ahead of the vote, Mbappe, the captain of the French national football team and a North African immigrant descent, publicly called on young people to vote, saying that he opposes extremism, divisive ideas and, more importantly, political apathy.
The 25-year-old said: "That's why I want to speak up for my generation. Because when I was younger, I used to think that even if I spoke up, I couldn't change everything. ”
In the wake of Mbappe's remarks, a poll by the French pollster IFOP showed that 57 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 35 said they would vote in the first round. In the 2022 parliamentary elections, only 30% of this age group voted. In addition, the total turnout in the 2022 French parliamentary elections was about 46%, about 20 percentage points lower than this one.
In addition, Mbappe's remarks also caused the support of the National Alliance to drop briefly. Among those aged 18 to 34, the party's support fell from 31 percent to 27 percent.
With the exception of the short-lived "Mbappe effect", French voters felt the need to vote for disappointment with those who possessed and sought power.
Philippe Lempereur, a 64-year-old voter, is tired of politicians on the left, center and right. In his opinion, politicians from these parties cannot ensure that people work together on issues such as having shelter and having enough food.
"We default to voting as the least bad option," Lempelle said. I'd rather vote than do nothing. ”
Comprehensive Xinhua News Agency, The Paper
Photo: Xinhua News Agency