The results of the far-right French National Assembly came less than expected in the first round of the French regional and provincial elections on Sunday, according to the first estimates, in a poll that constitutes a preliminary test a year before the presidential elections.
In the elections, which were held with very high abstentions, French President Emmanuel Macron’s “Republic on the Move” party did not achieve good results.
Lower than expected results
According to preliminary estimates, the results of the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen – which ran in the second round of the presidential elections in 2017, came below expectations and the local elections that were held in 2015 when it was issued in 6 regions.
Thierry
“We have deviated from all expectations” in the region, said Muselier of the right-wing Republicans.
But the National Assembly came second in several areas, but it does not seem able to win next Sunday.
In general, the outgoing officials took the lead, in a trend that enhances the chances of the Republican Party and the Socialist Party in confronting the National Assembly and the “Republic on the Move” party, which does not have a strong local base.
In the Ile-de-France region (north), the outgoing regional president, Xavier Bertrand, who is now running for the presidential elections in 2022, led by a large margin over the candidate of the National Rally, Sebastien Shawno, while opinion polls expected a fierce competition between them.
A “difficult” test for Macron
While the National Rally led by Le Pen has been on the rise for nearly 40 years, it has not succeeded – despite achieving good results in the previous elections – in finding electoral strongholds for it, as the electoral system is not in its favor, and for decades it has faced opposition and rejection from the rest of the parties. General that bloc against him in the second round of elections.
The Republic on the Move party – which was set up around Macron to run in the 2017 presidential elections – does not have local bases, and has not achieved good results, and French government spokesman Gabriel Attal admitted that “it was difficult.”
In turn, the head of the Republican Party, Christian Jacob, considered the event a “terrible failure of the government.”
Environmentalists also failed to score well after they performed stellarly in major cities during the 2020 municipal elections.
The first round of the district and district elections saw a very high boycott rate, ranging between 66.5 and 68.6%, according to polling institutes’ estimates, a level that Interior Minister Gerald Darmannan described in a tweet as “very worrying.”
Le Pen expressed her disappointment, because the party’s voters did not turn out to vote, calling on them to turn out in large numbers in the second round next Sunday.
And she considered that “the voters, with their large boycott, left the way open for the outgoing elected to remain in their positions.”
All political figures expressed their concern about the very high rate of boycott of the elections that were organized in the midst of the Corona pandemic.
The first round of these elections was postponed for a week, because health measures were preventing gatherings and moving between homes, and the candidates were satisfied with roaming the markets to distribute leaflets while wearing masks.