France will vote this Sunday and next to renew National Assembly in parliamentary elections expected with strong abstention
A month and a half after the re-election of centrist Emmanuel Macron president, France will go to the polls this Sunday and next Sunday to renew the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. Some 48 million citizens will be able to vote in these two-round parliamentary elections, although there are expected to be strong abstentions.
The party of Macron and its allies, who are running for the parliamentary elections labeled Ensemble (Together), and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s trade union of left-wing parties (Nupes) are competing for an absolute majority in the National Assembly, set at 289 seats. National Regrouping, the party of the far-right Marine Le Pen, is said to be the fourth political force in the National Assembly, behind the Republicans, the moderate right, according to polls.
The legislative elections are in reality 577 two-round elections. In total, there are 6,293 candidates in 577 constituencies, the same number of seats at stake in this election. Each district represents about 125,000 inhabitants. Eleven deputies represent French residents abroad.
To be elected a deputy in the first round, it is necessary to obtain a majority of the valid votes (50%) and that the votes obtained represent 25% of the electoral count of that constituency, that both those voting as those who vote includes. remember. If no one crosses that threshold, a second round is held between the candidates who have obtained at least 12.5% of the vote.
Unlike the presidential elections, where only the two most voted go to the second round, the parliamentary elections can have more than two finalists. The seat with the most votes wins the second round.
These legislatures have been marked by the Nupes invasion. Mélenchon has achieved something that seemed impossible a few months ago: uniting all left-wing parties. The New People’s, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) brings together candidates from La Francia Insumisa, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and Europe Ecology-The Greens.
The leader of La Francia Insumisa (the Gallic Podemos) has proposed the legislation as “a third round”. Mélenchon is seeking revenge after finishing third in the first round of the presidential election, behind Macron and Le Pen. The left-wing leader has asked the French to vote for left-wing candidates in parliamentary elections.
Mélenchon wants to force cohabitation, forced coexistence between a president and a prime minister of different political persuasions. This has happened three times in the Fifth Republic: twice during the presidency of the socialist François Mitterrand and once during the mandate of the conservative Jacques Chirac. He estimates that if the left’s union gains a majority in the National Assembly, Macron would be forced to appoint him prime minister.
Egoitz Urrutikoetxea -son of ETA leader Josu Urrutikoetxea, alias Josu Ternera- is running in the French parliamentary elections for EH Bai, the brand of the nationalist left in the French Basque Country. Ternera’s son, born in Bayonne and of French nationality, is a candidate for a seat in the National Assembly for the fourth constituency of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
In this constituency, a total of nine candidates are running to replace the charismatic deputy Jean Lassalle of the Resistons (Let’s Resist) party. A deputy since 2002 and a former presidential candidate, Lassalle will not be running in these elections because he has to undergo heart surgery. In 2017, Lassalle was elected a deputy in the second round with 52.7% of the vote.
His brother, Julien Lassalle, hopes to replace him in the seat, to continue defending the rural world in the National Assembly, though he argues against him that he is less known than the veteran deputy. And to win the elections, the surname is not enough, it also takes a good election manifesto to convince the voters.
Lassalle and Urrutikoetxea will have to compete for the seat, including Annick Tronday, candidate of La República and Marcha (President Emmanuel Macron’s party) and Iñaki Echaniz, candidate of the left-wing parties (Nupes) union. It remains to be seen how many of the nine candidates qualify for the second round of the parliamentary elections.
In the French Basque Country, 32 candidates from different parties are taking part in the first round of parliamentary elections. EH Bai is presented in the three constituencies of the French Basque Country with the slogan “Gure esku – In our hands”. His election campaign focused on the ecological transition and housing issues. Besides Urrutikoetxea, the nationalist left proposes Mathilde Hary and Peio Dufau as candidates in the fifth and sixth constituencies respectively of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Source: La Verdad
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