A Free Hand For France's Macron? Looming Parliament Vote Is Key

Fresh from winning a second term as French president, Emmanuel Macron soon faces another fight that will determine whether he can pursue his reformist agenda -- parliamentary elections in which his rivals are looking to deny him a majority

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Apr, 2022 ) :Fresh from winning a second term as French president, Emmanuel Macron soon faces another fight that will determine whether he can pursue his reformist agenda -- parliamentary elections in which his rivals are looking to deny him a majority.

All 577 deputy seats in the lower-house National Assembly are up for grabs in the votes on June 12 and 19, and Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) party, with 267 MPs currently, is likely to encounter stiff resistance, analysts say.

"The parliament elections are going to be the true election, because getting a majority will be essential," said Dominique Reynie, a political analyst at the Fondapol institute.

Yet two polls released just after Macron's victory over far-right challenger Marine Le Pen on Sunday found that two-thirds of French people do not want to hand the president a parliament majority for the next five years.

Le Pen, who scored her National Rally's highest election result ever at nearly 42 percent, immediately called on her millions of supporters "to launch the great battle for the legislative elections.

" "We already have 450 candidates lined up," David Rachline, the National Rally mayor of Frejus in southern France, said at Le Pen's post-election party -- currently the party has just eight MPs.

Hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon issued a similar plea Sunday by urging an alliance with Communists, Greens and the eviscerated Socialist party to form a parliament majority that would force Macron to name him prime minister.

While such a "cohabitation" appears improbable -- there are only several dozen left-wing MPs of all stripes -- a large bloc of deputies on the left and far right could find common cause in joining to stymie Macron's parliamentary ambitions.

"Don't give up. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly into action, democracy can give us the means to change this direction... the third round begins tonight!" Melenchon said Sunday.

Christophe Castaner, Macron's party chief in parliament, accused Melenchon of playing "a dangerous game, but I'm convinced the French will want Emmanuel Macron to have the means to carry out what he was elected to do," he told France 2 television on Monday.