Macron’s party wins clear parliamentary majority in France polls
According to the results, just weeks after his own presidential victory, French President Emmanuel Macron’s party has won a clear parliamentary majority.
With nearly all the votes counted, his party La République en Marche, along with MoDem allies, has won more than 300 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly. The winning margin is lower than what some expected and the turnout is down from 2012. La République had been formed just over a year ago, while half of its candidates have had little or no political experience.
The result of the polls have swept aside all of the mainstream parties and given the 39 year old president a strong mandate in parliament to pursue his pro-EU, business-friendly reform plans.
A weak voter turnout had marked the Parliamentary elections second round, the turnout was estimated to be a record low of about 42%, which is down sharply from five years ago. Correspondents have speculated that opponents of Mr Macron may simply have not bothered to turn out. While the Prime Minister Edouard Philippe had acknowledged the low turnout, but he had promised that his party would act for France as a whole.
La République en Marche (Republic on the Move or LREM) and MoDem’s comfortable majority of which comprised of the 289 seat threshold which is required to control the National Assembly will indeed be a big blow to traditional parties on both the left and right. On the other hand the conservative Republicans and their allies with 125-131 seats could form a large opposition block. However this figure is down from 200 seats in the last parliament.
The Socialists, who have had been in power for the previous five years, alongside their partners, had looked set to get only 41-49 seats which is their lowest tally ever. The Socialist leader Jean-Claude Cambadélis has announced his retirement from the post, furthermore he had urged the left “to change everything, its form and its substance, its ideas and its organisation.”
While eyeing for 15 seats, the far-right National Front (FN) party won eight seats.
FN leader Marine Le Pen, 48, has won a seat in parliament for the first time, she was representing Henin-Beaumont which is a depressed former mining town in the north. However two of her top aides, including her deputy leader had been eliminated.
Ms Le Pen had came out and said that the President Macron may have got a large parliamentary majority, but “he must know that his ideas are not of the majority in the country and that the French will not support a project that weakens our nation.”
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