adds participation at 5:00 p.m., declarations of voters
PARIS (awp/afp) – Participation in the second round of the legislative elections is up slightly on Sunday compared to 2017, with the suspense remaining total as to whether President Macron manages to maintain a majority in the Assembly against a united left.
While part of the country was still facing an unprecedented heat wave, the participation rate, for metropolitan France, amounted to 38.11% at 5:00 p.m. according to the Ministry of the Interior, down from the first round a week ago (39.42%) but up from the second round in 2017, where it reached 35.33% at the same time.
According to the first estimates of three polling institutes, abstention will ultimately amount to 54%. That is more than in the first round (52.5%) but less than in the second round in 2017 when they had been 57.4% to desert the polls, a record since 1958.
“Voting is really something of an imperative citizen. I saw that there were 60-70% of young people who did not vote. It makes me sad”, says in Paris, Léna Laurent, producer in the middle 21-year-old filmmaker, who believes that “the climate issue” is a priority because “no one tolerates 40 degrees in June”.
Others, on the other hand, opt for abstention, like Yannick, a thirty-year-old on a bike met in Guéret (Creuse) in front of the town hall: “I’m going to cool off at the Courtille pond. I’ll find probably more people than in the polling stations!”
More than 48 million French people are called to the polls, until 6:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m. in the big cities, for this second round.
The presidential coalition Together! hopes to win a new absolute majority there – it takes 289 deputies out of 577 – but which is far from certain according to the polls, given the expected breakthrough of the united left under the banner of Nupes.
Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by his wife Brigitte, voted in Le Touquet around 1:00 p.m. in his usual polling station. The head of state then went to greet supporters and curious people who were waiting for him outside, in the rain, signing autographs, including on a plastered leg.
“We can’t moan afterwards”
The leader of Nupes, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is not standing, slipped a ballot into the ballot box in Marseille, as did Marine Le Pen, in her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont.
The day started badly for the presidential camp with the defeat in Guadeloupe of the Secretary of State for the Sea Justine Benin, beaten in the 2nd constituency, with 41.35% of the votes behind Christian Baptiste (DVG), supported by Nupes , elected with 58.65%.
In accordance with an unwritten rule but already applied in 2017 by Emmanuel Macron, Ms. Benin will have to leave the government.
Eight of the nine candidates supported by Nupes were elected in Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyana, where we voted on Saturday and which therefore remain mainly on the left.
Also note the election in Polynesia of the separatist Tematai Le Gayic who could become, at 21, the youngest deputy in the history of the Fifth Republic, knowing that there were still two candidates in the running in mainland France young than him.
Other ministers are under threat. This is particularly the case for Amélie de Montchalin (Ecological Transition), in great danger in Essonne, as for the boss of En Marche and Minister of the Public Service Stanislas Guerini or for the Minister Delegate for Europe Clément Beaune, both in Paris.
Mobilization is a decisive issue in this hot weekend.
Annick, 75, retired, blond square and glasses, umbrella under her arm, voted in the popular district of Maurepas, north of Rennes. “There is no one, I am very surprised. People are discouraged but if we stay at home, we won’t be able to complain afterwards,” she sighs.
Shoulder to shoulder
In Oyonnax (Ain), two young women, topless demonstrated in front of the town hall to demand the “resignation” of the Minister of Solidarity Damien Abad, implicated for sexual violence, by banging on saucepans, according to a video broadcast on Twitter by the feminist movement Femen.
This second round comes to close a long electoral sequence, opened on April 10 by the first round of the presidential election, which had seen the broad re-election of Emmanuel Macron ahead of Marine Le Pen.
But the party looks more uncertain in the legislative elections after the surprise breakthrough of the alliance of leftist parties Nupes and the far right.
In the first round, the outgoing majority, which is running under the label Ensemble! (LREM, MoDem, Agir and Horizons), arrived neck and neck – around 26% of the vote – with the left alliance (LFI, PS, EELV and PCF).
Marine Le Pen’s RN totaled 18.7%, or 5.5 points more than in 2017, ahead of Les Républicains and its UDI allies who fell to 11.3%.
The ballot will tell if the National Rally obtains a group, i.e. at least 15 deputies, which gives more means and speaking time.
The far-right party only succeeded once in its history, from 1986 to 1988, during the time of the National Front, thanks to proportional representation.
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