The mass exit aims to deny parliamentary victories in the final vote that could give the far right its first government since World War II.
France’s left-wing and center parties withdrew hundreds of candidates from Sunday’s parliamentary elections in a move aimed at preventing the formation of the country’s first far-right government since World War II.
The mass exit occurred before Tuesday’s registration deadline, ahead of the final second round on Sunday. The candidates who withdrew were, for the most part, allies of French President Emmanuel Macron or left-wing parties.
Macron called for early legislative elections in June, after his party was defeated in the European elections, but the move appears to have backfired. Instead of reinforcing the mandate of her centrist Renaissance party, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party won the most seats in the first round of voting on June 30.
Le Pen’s party, which espouses an anti-immigration platform with policies seen as Islamophobic, hopes to win enough seats in the second round of voting to form a government. Le Pen said on Tuesday that the party will still try to form a government, even if it falls just short of an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly.
Macron’s centrists and the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) hope they can avoid such an event, with the president telling a closed-door meeting of ministers at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday that the top priority was to block the RN from power.
This would involve supporting members of the far-left Unsubmissive France (LFI) party if necessary, Macron said, despite some opposition from members of his own party.
LFI party member François Ruffin also said on Tuesday that there was unity in “one objective… denying an absolute majority to the National Rally.”
Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said candidates who dropped out were typically running in three-way races, where the far-right candidate appeared to be leading.
“This means that in several constituencies where there was a three-way contest, there will actually only be a two-way contest between the far-right candidate and whoever remained in the race, be it a centrist candidate or a left-wing alliance candidate.” , Butler said.
“The impact this will actually have on Sunday, when voters return to the polls, is not predictable,” he added.
Only 76 legislators, almost all from the extremes of the political spectrum, were immediately elected in the first round of voting.
Most projections immediately after the first round of voting showed that the RN did not achieve an absolute majority.
Several analysts said the most likely outcome would be the suspension of Parliament, which could lead to months of political paralysis as France prepares to host the Summer Olympics.
The chaos also risks damaging the international credibility of Macron, a supporter of Ukraine’s fight against Russian invasion who is scheduled to attend a NATO summit in Washington, DC, next week.
For her part, Le Pen said she would name her protégé Jordan Bardella, 28, prime minister if her party won a majority. This raises the possibility that a far-right official serving concurrently with Macron, who has committed to finishing his term that ends in 2027,
Similar efforts to build a broad coalition of centrist and left-wing parties to thwart the far right in France have been successful in the past.
This included 2002, when voters backed Jacques Chirac to defeat Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, in a presidential contest.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
