Monday, July 01, 2024

French Far Right Wins Big in First Round of Voting

THE NEW YORK TIMES: A surprise decision by President Emmanuel Macron to hold a snap election appears to have backfired badly, giving the National Rally a decisive victory.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, giving a speech Sunday evening in Hénin-Beaumont, France. | Francois Lo Presti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The National Rally party on Sunday won a crushing victory in the first round of voting for the French National Assembly, bringing its long-taboo brand of nationalist and anti-immigrant politics to the threshold of power for the first time.

Official results published by the Interior Ministry showed that the party and its allies won about 33 percent of the vote, far ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party and its allies, which took about 20 percent to end in third place.

A coalition of left-wing parties, called the New Popular Front, won about 28 percent of the vote. Ranging from the moderate socialists to the far-left France Unbowed, the coalition was boosted by strong support among young people. » | Roger Cohen, Reporting from Paris | Sunday, June 30, 2024