The polls opened in France at 09.00 Greek time and 43.3 million voters are invited to elect 501 members of parliament during today’s second round of parliamentary elections. From last Sunday’s first round, 76 deputies were elected, who collected over 51% of the voters in their district. Of these, 39 were candidates with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Alarm, 32 with the left’s new Popular Front, 2 with Emmanuel Macron’s faction and 5 are considered independent right-wing. Also in one district the second candidate withdrew and thus the election of the first is considered a foregone conclusion.

In today’s second round in 409 constituencies two candidates will compete, in 89 constituencies three candidates and in 2 constituencies four candidates. The first is elected. In about 200 constituencies, where based on the results of the first round three candidates should face each other, the factions of the French president and the left decided at the beginning of the week to withdraw their candidates who did not have a significant chance of being elected, increasing with the in this way the chances of the non-far-right candidate being elected. Thus, the most recent opinion polls, which are nevertheless considered high risk, show Marine Le Pen’s party coming first in seats without, however, having an absolute majority of seats (289) in the new French National Assembly. In particular, according to the latest Ipsos poll published in the newspaper Le Monde, the National Alarm and its allies could have between 175 and 205 seats, compared to the 89 they won in 2022. The New People’s Front of the parties of the Left and other left-wing candidates could gather between 145 and 175 seats, compared to the 150 they had, while Macron’s “Together” faction appears to have a serious reduction in seats, which from the 245 seats it had in 2022 will range between 118 and 148 seats. Finally, the Republican party along with other right-wing candidates will have between 57 and 67 seats, more or less what they had.

Moreover, the same poll shows that in the event of a confrontation between a left-wing candidate and a far-right one, one in two of the Macron faction would abstain from voting, while 32% would vote for the left-wing candidate and 18% for the far-right. On the other hand, in the case of a confrontation between a candidate of the Macron faction and a far-right candidate, 62% of those who had voted left in the first round would vote for the candidate of the Macron faction in the second round, 32% would choose the path of abstention and only 16% would choose the far-right candidate.

Regarding the percentage of abstentions, the first official estimates from the French Ministry of the Interior will be given at 13.00 Greek time. In the first round of the parliamentary elections, two out of three French people went to the polls, while a month before, in the European elections, one out of two people went to the polls. Both from the number of French people who chose to vote electronically, and from the number of those who signed a power of attorney to have someone else vote in their place, it appears that abstention in today’s second round is likely to be lower than in the first round, despite a fact that in recent years in France the opposite has been happening, but also despite the fact that schools have closed and many families have gone on vacation.

The polls will close at 21.00 Greek time in the major cities of France, so the first estimates regarding the distribution of seats will be made public.

Finally, the French police are on alert with 30,000 police officers on alert, including 5,000 in Paris where there are fears that vandalism may occur after the pre-election results are announced. France’s pre-election period has been rather violent in the past week, with at least 50 cases of violence reported and several arrests and arrests made, according to the interior ministry.