Marine le Pen  /  Cuba Debate

By Guillermo Alvarado

As expected, France's extreme right, represented by Marine le Pen's National Rally party, won this Sunday in the first round of early elections to renew the National Assembly, made up of 577 deputies.

According to preliminary results released by the French Ministry of the Interior, this group would have won 33.5% of the votes, which would allow it to have between 240 and 270 seats, very close to the absolute majority set at 289 seats.

The second position went to the leftist alliance New Popular Front, which includes, among others, the Communist Party and La Francia Insumisa, of the veteran progressive leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who took 28.5% of the vote and could obtain between 180 and 200 deputies.

Meanwhile, the Renaissance alliance of President Emmanuel Macron suffered a debacle by obtaining 22.1 out of every 100 ballots, which would allow it an initial bench of 60 to 90 legislators.

With these numbers, everything was ready for the second round next Sunday, when it will be decided whether there is an absolute parliamentary majority.

It is not a minor matter, because although the President of the Republic is the one who appoints the candidate for prime minister, who acts as head of government, it is the National Assembly that is in charge of ratifying him for the position, that is, it has the last word.

If the worst predictions come true and National Unification obtains 289 or more deputies, the future prime minister will undoubtedly be from that party. This would be the first time it has occurred in the so-called Fifth French Republic, which began after the liberation of that country from Nazi rule in World War II.

Macron insists that even in this scenario, he does not plan to resign from his position, but it will be necessary to see how he is going to govern in a regime of cohabitation with a racist, anti-immigrant and ultra-nationalist political force.

In fact, the main slogan of Marine le Pen and her dolphin, Jordan Bardella, is to return all the rights to the French, which according to the ultranationalists are being taken away from them by migrants, a false argument, but attractive to the less cultivated sectors of the population.

Thus, for the New Popular Front, the task this week will be to convince the majority of voters of the danger that would entail having a legislative body, and the head of government, controlled by an ideology based on hatred of what is different or alien, an effort not easy in a Europe that increasingly looks towards the extreme right.