France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has said more than 50 candidates and activists nationwide have faced violent attacks in the run-up to Sunday’s tense final round of legislative elections.
He announced the amount following the horrific assault of government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot, her deputy Virginie Lanlo, and a party worker while putting up election posters in Meudon, southwest of Paris.
The cause for the attack is unknown, but Ms Thevenot returned to Meudon on Thursday with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who condemned “attacks of intolerable cowardice”.
The recent rash of assaults around France mirrors the combustible environment on the penultimate day of campaigning in an election that the right-wing National Rally is expected to win.
Although National Rally leads in the polls, 217 candidates have dropped out of local run-off races, giving another candidate a better chance of preventing them from gaining an outright majority in the National Assembly.
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen says there is still a chance of outright victory on Sunday.
Mr Darmanin has declared that 30,000 police officers will be deployed across France for Sunday’s vote in an effort to keep “the ultra-left or ultra-right” from causing trouble.
The National Rally party, which gained 33.2% of the vote in the first round of President Macron’s unexpected snap election, is now aiming for an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.
However according to Reuters, the progressive left’s opponents have promised to do everything they can to prevent the extreme right from getting enough seats to establish a government.
In the first round, candidates who received more than half of the local vote in their constituency, including 39 National Rally candidates and their supporters, won all 76 seats.
The remaining 501 seats will be decided in runoff elections, and 217 third-place candidates have dropped out of the contest, giving a challenger a stronger chance of defeating National Rally. Of the 217 withdrawals, 130 were from the left-wing New Popular Front and 81 from the Macron alliance.
Marine Le Pen has complained bitterly about the operation to ensure “mass withdrawals” and criticized those who sought to “stay in power against the will of the people”.
She did, however, believe that if voters turned out in large numbers, National Rally could still gain an absolute majority.
BBC reports the most recent Ifop poll predicts that National Rally will receive 210-240 seats, falling short of the 289 required to establish a government. This is down from the expected 240-270 seats won in the first round.
Nonetheless, certain minorities in France are concerned about what National Rally will do if elected.
The National Rally intends to give French people “national preference” over immigrants for jobs and housing, as well as to repeal the right to automatic French citizenship for children of foreign parents who have spent five years in France between the ages of 11 and 18.
Law and order is one of the National Rally’s top goals, along with immigration and tax cuts to address the cost-of-living crisis.
Source: BBC, Reuters
France’s Right-Wing National Rally Party Poised to Win in France
France’s Right-Wing National Rally Party Poised to Win in France
