As polls in France began to close in the past hour for voting in the Assembly (legislative branch) elections, it started to become clear that a sea-change may happen after all. Numerous outlets are reporting that early projections of the snap election results show voters moving to the right and away from current President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, likely spelling a massive victory for the right-leaning National Rally party in the first round of voting. The second round (run-off) will take place on July 7th.
via Politico:
According to early estimates by pollsters Ipsos, the far-right National Rally is on course to win 34 percent of Sunday’s vote while French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance suffered staggering losses, coming third with 20.3 percent of vote. The left-wing alliance made a strong showing with 28.1 percent of the vote.
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According to early projections based on exit polls, Le Pen’s party is expected to get 230-280 seats in the 577-seat national assembly, the left wing alliance 125-165 seats and Macron’s coalition 70-100.
Until the election results and negotiations among the three political factions are completed in the coming days, it’s unknown how many seats each will be allocated.
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Macron is holding on by his fingernails, continuing to urge his base to overwhelm the National Rally’s momentum going into the run-off in July:
On Sunday, the French president called for “democratic and republican” forces to unite against Le Pen’s party. “Faced with the [rise of the] National Rally, we need to foster a wide unity that is clearly democratic and republican ahead of the second round,” Macron said, according to a statement from the Elysée Palace. “The high turnout … shows how important the vote was for our fellow citizens, and how they want to clarify the political situation.”
Meanwhile, here is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, celebrating news of the projected win at party event:
“The French people have shown that they want to draw a line under seven years of [Macron’s] disdainful rule,” said Le Pen, speaking at a party event in the Eastern French town of Hénin-Beaumont. “We haven’t won yet, the second round will be crucial … we need an absolute majority so that Jordan Bardella, in eight days, can be appointed prime minister by Emmanuel Macron,” she added.
A sign of how up in the air things are can be seen here, with Sky News reporting slightly different numbers from Ipsos, on how each party fared in the first round:
National Rally came out top in the first round, with 33%, followed by the left-wing New Popular Front on 29%, and Mr Macron’s Renaissance party with 22%.
As this is a developing story, RedState will provide updates as they become available.
