French far-right extends poll lead as campaign ends
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[June 28, 2024]
By Tassilo Hummel
PARIS (Reuters) - France's far-right National Rally (RN) extended its
lead in a poll published on the last day of campaigning before Sunday's
first round of parliamentary elections, with another survey showing it
in sight of a slim majority.
Marine Le Pen's anti-immigrant, eurosceptic party has led polling since
President Emmanuel Macron called a surprise snap election this month
that has plunged France into uncertainty and unnerved European neighbors
and financial markets.
A new OpinionWay poll published by Les Echos newspaper on Friday showed
the RN could reach as much as 37% of the popular vote, up two percentage
points on its score a week ago.
Macron's centrist bloc Together party was seen reaching 20%, down by two
points from the last publication. The New Popular Front leftwing
alliance stood at an unchanged 28% of the vote.
BFM TV, in a different poll compiled by Elabe, calculated that the RN
and allies could end up with 260-295 seats in the new parliament -
potentially crossing the 289-seat bar for an absolute majority giving
them a clear mandate to govern.
Accurate seat projections are tricky because the outcome depends on
results in 577 constituencies across France. Moreover, after Sunday's
first round, rivals to the RN may team up and withdraw candidates in
tactical moves to defeat far-right candidates in the July 7 second
round.
The prospect either of an RN-led government or the political paralysis
of a hung parliament has unnerved financial markets, with the risk
premium on French government bonds rising on Friday to its widest since
the 2012 euro zone crisis.
An outright RN victory would position the party for an awkward
"cohabitation" with Macron for the remainder of his term through to
2027, the first time a French president would have to share power with a
party outside the political mainstream.
WHOSE PREROGATIVE?
While the RN has toned down some of its anti-European Union positions
and has vowed fiscal responsibility, questions remain over how it will
fund its election promises and what its deep euroscepticism will mean
for the future of EU integration.
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A relief panel sculpture is pictured in the hemicycle of the French
National Assembly before the first round of the early French
parliamentary elections, in Paris, France, June 27, 2024.
REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Critics say racism underlies its "French first" policies despite Le
Pen's efforts to detoxify a party inherited from her father
Jean-Marie, who was convicted of inciting racial hatred.
In a final TV debate on Thursday, Macron's Prime Minister Gabriel
Attal accused his RN challenger Jordan Bardella of continuing to
tolerate racist speech in the ranks of his far-right camp - an
accusation Bardella rejected.
The party has benefited from anger at Macron, whose decision to run
as president back in 2017 at the head of a newly formed, broad-based
centrist movement has reshaped French politics and was intended to
counter the rise of extremist parties.
His rule has been credited with pro-business reforms but is
perceived by many French voters to have ignored their concerns about
the rising cost of living and weaker public services.
Le Pen gave a foretaste of the type of clashes that a cohabitation
could trigger on Friday when she said an RN prime minister would
veto Macron's preferred choice to serve as the French official in
the European Commission in Brussels.
"It's the prerogative of the prime minister, not the president, to
name the French commissioner," she told Europe 1 radio. A diplomatic
source said on Thursday Macron backed Thierry Breton, the former
businessman who currently holds the Commission's internal markets
portfolio, for a new term.
(Writing by Mark John; Editing by Peter Graff)
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