First exit polls in France show Le Pen’s far-right finishing top with around 24%. Macron’s LREM second with around 22% via AFP
New Europe reports that Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party won the most votes in the European Parliament election in France, two exit polls showed on Sunday, in an upset to the domestic and European ambitions of President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron’s En Marche came second with 22.5 percent of the votes, marking Le Pen’s comeback after her 2017 defeat in the presidential election by Macron.
The IFOP poll showed the RN winning 24 percent of the vote compared with 22.5 percent for Macron’s centrist party. An Elabe poll showed similar figures and forecasted they would leave Le Pen’s party with 24 seats in the European Parliament compared with 23 seats for Macron’s party. The Greens came in third, with 12.5 percent, beating the conservative Republicans.
This is a summary of Politico’s and FT projections of the voting today in France:
France – The Projections
If turnout of 42.43% is maintained in this vote, Politico predicts RN will beat second-placed LREM by 163,335 votes. That is just 0.59% of the 27,588,951 expected non-voters.
The RN (Le Pen) is expected to get 22 seats. The LREM (of Macron) is expected to get 21.
France – The Issues
Marine Le Pen’s far-right, French nationalist Rassemblement National (RN) opposes European integration but wants to team up with its right-wing allies in Italy and eastern Europe to change the political complexion of the European Parliament.
The latest polling puts the RN neck-and-neck or even slightly ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche (LREM), with the Republicans (LR) in third place and traditional left-wing parties such the Socialists (PS) scoring poorly. “We are — let there be no doubt — the beating heart of the French opposition and we are going to win the European elections,” said RN member of parliament Sébastien Chenu at a rally in Paris at the launch of the party’s European election campaign. (FT)
