Turnout is high for the second round of the French elections, which may lead to France’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation.
The polls will soon close in the second round of voting in the French parliamentary election, with the far right expected to perform strongly.By 5pm local time, 60 per cent of registered voters had taken part in the run-off round, slightly ahead of the first round on June 30 and higher than any similar election since 1981, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
The last polls ahead of the run-off showed Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) on track to win the most seats in parliament, but to fall short of an outright majority of 289 seats that would allow it to take the premiership and run the government.
The result of today’s election could lead France’s Fifth Republic into an unprecedented chapter: a potentially fractious cohabitation between the centrist president Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, which has never been in power; or a hung parliament so fractured that no bloc can form a government.
“The fact is, we are in a period of great uncertainty,” said Anne Levade, a constitutional law professor.
While polls suggest that the Rassemblement National will not reach the 289-seat majority, the far-right party is likely to become the largest force in the National Assembly.
If this is the case, Macron may decide to offer RN party chief Jordan Bardella the prime minister’s job.
