By Aarti Mosaic @Adobe Stock
Noemie Bisserbe and Stacy Meichtry of The Wall Street Journal report Le Pen’s National Rally is on track to score an unprecedented haul of seats in July 7 runoff. They write:
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally notched a victory in the first round of parliamentary elections across France on Sunday, moving her party one step closer to its goal of winning control of the National Assembly and taking the reins of government.
National Rally and its allies won 33% of first-round votes while the New Popular Front, a coalition of leftist parties, garnered 28% of ballots. President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-business party and its allies finished third with 21% of the vote.
National Rally is on track to score an unprecedented haul of parliamentary seats when voters return to the ballot box for the July 7 runoff, marking a watershed moment in the history of France’s modern Fifth Republic. If National Rally wins a majority in the National Assembly, Macron would face the possibility of sharing power with the first far-right government since Vichy France. Macron’s presidential term ends in 2027, and he said he won’t resign.[…]
Today, National Rally is animated by widespread anxiety that France’s Muslim minority, one of the largest in Europe, is encroaching on the secular values of the French republic.
On Sunday, Le Pen sought to assuage widespread concerns that the arrival of National Rally in the halls of government would herald an era of illiberalism. “No French person will lose any rights. Au contraire, the rights will be guaranteed,” she said.
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