A day before the metropolis, overseas voters began voting on Saturday in the first round of legislative elections, where Emmanuel Macron is aiming for a majority against a left with renewed ambitions.
Voters in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon were the first to go to the polls on Saturday at 8 a.m. local time (noon in Paris). This small archipelago in the North Atlantic, facing Canada, is proportionally the best represented in the National Assembly, with a seat of deputy for its approximately 6,000 inhabitants.
After the end of the campaign on Friday at midnight, more than 48 million French people are again called to the polls this weekend and the following day to elect their deputies, six weeks after the presidential election which returned Emmanuel Macron to the Elysée.
If the ballot is different, the three candidates who came first in the presidential election redo the match in the legislative elections, with the winner Emmanuel Macron who indirectly faces the finalist RN Marine Le Pen and the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third on April 24.
While the Macron-Le Pen duel had punctuated the presidential election, the rivalry this time took hold between the camp of the head of state and the left-wing alliance formed around Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI-PS-EELV -PCF), which the polls give neck and neck, with abstention as a referee.
It could reach, at the end of a campaign passed largely under the radar, new records, between 52 and 56%, beyond the 51.3% of June 11, 2017.
According to the latest opinion polls, the presidential coalition and Nupes are well ahead of Marine Le Pen’s RN. Following behind Les Républicains and the UDI as well as the Reconquête! party, the far-right party led by Eric Zemmour, who presents himself in the Var.
To obtain an absolute majority at the end of the second round on June 19, the confederation Together! (LREM, MoDem, Horizons and Agir) must win at least 289 of the 577 seats, a goal that the polls present as uncertain, even if they give Macronie the lead in seat projections in the second round.
If Together! comes first, but without reaching the bar of 289 elected, Emmanuel Macron would only have a relative majority in the National Assembly. A grim prospect for the President of the Republic who will no doubt have to seek the support of other political groups to approve the texts.
If, in the least likely scenario, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Nupes wins an absolute majority, Emmanuel Macron would be deprived of practically all his powers.
It is with this objective in mind that Jean-Luc Mélenchon has kept repeating that he wanted to make these legislative elections “a third round” which will allow him to be elected “Prime Minister”, despite a reservoir of votes which risk of failing him in the second round.
Emmanuel Macron has chosen to pose, as during the presidential election, as a bulwark against “the extremes”.
Criticizing the lack of credibility, according to him, of the Nupes on the economic level, he calls for a “strong and clear” majority in order to be able to implement his program.
Including Elisabeth Borne, fifteen members of the government are in the running for the legislative elections and will have to leave the executive in the event of defeat in accordance with a rule already applied in 2017 by Emmanuel Macron.
Nearly 6,300 candidates are running for the 577 seats, or 20% less than in 2017, due in particular to the agreement on the left.
After Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, the offices also opened on Saturday in Guyana (1:00 p.m. in Paris), then an hour later in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy.
In Guadeloupe, the macronie is watching the score of the outgoing Justine Benin, Secretary of State for the Sea, while Emmanuel Macron obtained only 30% of the votes on the island in the second round of the presidential election. Results expected overnight from Saturday to Sunday.
Two hours after the opening of the polls, the voters of the third constituency of Guadeloupe did not really rush to the polls, told an AFP journalist.
Myriam, fifty-year-old from the commune of Baie-Mahault, is an exception: “It had been years since I had necessarily voted”, she admits. “But now in Guadeloupe things are too serious,” she adds, citing in particular the high cost of living and access to water.
In the Pacific, voters in New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna vote on Sunday, that is to say from Saturday 10:00 p.m. Paris time.
The Polynesians had voted a week ago for the first round, as had the French living abroad. For the latter, online voting for the second round also begins this Saturday.
Finally, we will vote on Sunday in Reunion, as in Mayotte, where the time difference with mainland France is less.
bur-jk-cs-etr/arz/gvy
06/11/2022 17:57:07 – Paris (AFP) – © 2022 AFP
