French voters will cast their ballots in the final round of early legislative elections on Sunday. The outcome could force French President Emmanuel Macron to join power with far-right rivals or trigger long-term political instability just weeks before the Summer Olympics in Paris.
Mr Macron’s call last month for elections to the 577-seat National Assembly, France’s lower house and more importantly parliament, was a risky gamble but one that appeared to be in doubt after the first round of voting last week. Counterproductive in a big way.
Most polls close at 6pm local time on Sunday, with polls closing as late as 8pm in major cities. Polling agencies are forecasting national seats based on preliminary results, with official results expected to be announced in the evening just after 8pm.
Here’s what to pay attention to.
Can the far right win a sufficient absolute majority?
This will be the key issue.
The first round of voting was dominated by the nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally party. A coalition of left-wing parties called the “New Popular Front” came in second, while Macron’s party and its allies came in third.
Seventy-six seats were won outright – about half by the national assembly. But the rest advance to runoffs.
More than 300 constituencies were contested in a three-way race until more than 200 candidates from left-wing parties and Macron’s centrist coalition withdrew to avoid splitting votes and trying to prevent the far right from winning.
This would make it more difficult, though not impossible, for the National Rally and its allies to achieve an outright majority.
Most French pollsters expect the party and its allies to win between 175 and 240 seats, short of an absolute majority of 289 seats. But if the National Assembly and its allies gain an outright majority, they will almost certainly be able to form a government – and Macron, who has said he will stay in office, will have to work with them.
How will national leadership function?
With Macron as president and national rally leader Jordan Bardera as prime minister, there is the potential for a contentious outcome that France calls “cohabitation.”
The French Prime Minister and Cabinet are responsible to the House of Commons and determine the country’s policy. But they are appointed by the president, who has broad executive powers and is directly elected by the public.
Typically, the president and prime minister are politically aligned. (France holds presidential and legislative elections every five years, weeks apart, so voters are likely to support the same party twice.) But when the presidency and the National Assembly are divided, the president has no choice but to appoint someone from A prime minister from an opposition party, or someone whom lawmakers would not overturn through a vote of no confidence.
There were also cohabitations between mainstream left and conservative leaders from 1986 to 1988, 1993 to 1995 and 1997 to 2002. The cohabitation experience between Mr. La will be unprecedented.
What if no one gets an outright majority?
One likely scenario, polls suggest, is that the House of Commons is broadly divided into three blocs with conflicting agendas and in some cases deep hostility to each other – the National Rally, the New Popular Front and those including Mr Macron. The narrowing of the centrist coalition, including the Ennahda Party.
As things stand, no one group appears to be able to find enough partners to form a majority, leaving Mr. Macron with limited options.
“France’s political culture is not conducive to compromise,” said Sami Benzina, a professor of public law at the University of Poitiers, noting that French institutions are designed to produce “clear majorities that can govern themselves.”
“This will be the first time that the Fifth Republic has been unable to form a government due to lack of an absolute majority,” he said.
Some analysts and politicians say a broad cross-party coalition could extend from the Greens to more moderate conservatives. But France is not used to alliances, and several political leaders have ruled out the possibility.
Another possibility is for a caretaker government to handle day-to-day affairs until a political breakthrough occurs. But it also departed from French tradition.
If none of these solutions work, the country could be stuck in months of political gridlock.
Will the vote end in violence?
The campaign, one of the shortest in modern French history, was marred by tension, racist incidents and violence.
A TV news program filmed a couple supporting a national rally verbally abusing a black neighbor and telling her to “go to the doghouse.” A North African TV host has revealed a racist letter he received at home. A bakery in Avignon was burned down and covered in homophobic and racist labels.
French Interior Minister Gerrald Darmanin said on Friday that more than 50 people – candidates, their replacements or supporters – had been “physically attacked” during the campaign.
There are fears that post-election protests could turn violent. Authorities have deployed about 30,000 security forces across the country, including about 5,000 in the Paris area, to deal with potential unrest.
Catherine Porter Contributed reporting.
