French President Emmanuel Macron’s rivals have warned against handing him an overwhelming majority that would stifle debate after his party cruised to victory in the opening round of elections to the National Assembly.
Macron’s year-old centrist Republic on the Move (La République en Marche, LREM) party and its allies are tipped to clean up in the 577-member lower house of parliament, winning up to 445 seats – a historic tally for a post-war president.
The opposition and French press expressed concern over what the left-wing Liberation daily called the “quasi-Stalinist result”.
The leader of the right-wing Republicans in the Paris area, Valerie Pecresse, appealed for a “civic surge”, warning of the risk of “groupthink”.
Record low turnout of 49% in Sunday’s first round detracted from the performance of Macron’s untested team, raising concerns over the strength of his mandate.
Government spokesman Christophe Castaner admitted that voter participation – the lowest for six decades – was “a failure of this election” and that Macron’s camp would need to reach out to those who stayed away.
Analyst Gael Sliman of Odoxa pollsters pinned the high abstention rate on voter fatigue after the presidential election and the apathy of those “who may not agree with Macron but do not want to block his path”.
“It’s a muted, incomplete victory, because he does enjoy not the backing of a majority of the French people,” Sliman told AFP.
The result confirmed the yearning for political renewal laid bare by Macron’s election.
After being routed in the first round of the presidential election, the Republicans and the Socialists who had alternated in power for six decades, suffered further humiliation.
The Republicans were forecast to drop around half their seats while the Socialists were tipped for catastrophic losses of more than 200 seats.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front (FN) and the radical France Unbowed of firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon also failed to hold back Macron’s tidal wave.
LREM and centrist ally MoDem won 32.32% of the first-round vote, ahead of the Republicans and its allies on 21.56% and the FN on 13.20%.
The Socialists and their allies secured just 9.51% while France Unbowed and its on-off communist allies got 13.74%.
The Republicans had hoped to rebound from their presidential defeat but have been hamstrung by infighting between those who want to co-operate with Macron, an economic liberal, and those who oppose him.
Yesterday party leaders vowed to set aside their differences for the duration of the election.
“The stakes of the second round are clear,” ex-prime minister and party grandee Alain Juppe said, urging voters to get behind the opposition, adding: “Having a monochrome parliament is never good for democratic debate.”
The Socialists, meanwhile, were fighting for survival, with several heavyweights including party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis crashing out in the first round.
“We’re on the ropes, decimated, in pieces,” former junior education minister Thierry Mandon said, urging the party to “give the keys to the next generation”.
Only four MPs – two of them from Macron’s slate – topped the 50% mark needed for election at the first round.
LREM fielded political newcomers in around 200 constituencies, some of whom felled long-sitting lawmakers on Sunday.
Among those hoping for a win in the second round are Marie Sara, a retired bullfighter running against an FN stalwart in southern France.
The election showed FN struggling to rebound from Le Pen’s bruising defeat in the presidential run-off, with forecasts showing it winning a maximum of 10 seats.
Le Pen repeated her complaint that France’s winner-takes-all system penalised smaller parties and called on her supporters to mobilise en masse for the second round.
The party of France’s 39-year-old president coasted to victory in Sunday’s first round on the back of his strong debut.
Macron has won praise for appointing a balanced cabinet that straddles the left-right divide and taking a leading role in Europe’s fight-back against US President Donald Trump on climate change.
Sunday’s results show he will have a relatively free hand to push through the ambitious labour, economic and social reforms he promised on the campaign trail.
He will also have succeeded in ushering in a younger and more diverse parliament with more women and ethnic minorities.
With many of the new lawmakers owing him their seats, analysts have warned that the next parliament could be unusually submissive.
Macron’s opponents have already warned that they will take the fight to the streets.
A group of trade unions and NGOs opposed to his proposals to loosen the country’s strict labour laws have called for demonstrations in several cities on June 19.
Macron has won praise for appointing a balanced cabinet that straddles the left-right divide and taking a leading role in Europe’s fight-back against US President Donald Trump on climate change.
