French far right works to turn election win into power
LA TimesSupporters of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen cheer election results Sunday in Henin-Beaumont. Voters propelled the Le Pen’s National Rally to a strong lead in first-round legislative elections Sunday and plunged the country into political uncertainty, according to polling projections. Strengthened by a surge of support that made it the winner but not yet the overall victor, the National Rally and its allies could secure a working majority in parliament in the final round next Sunday — or they might fall short, stymied at the last hurdle by opponents who still hope to prevent the formation of France’s first far-right government since World War II. Getting 289 or more lawmakers in the 577-seat National Assembly would give National Rally leader Marine Le Pen an absolute majority and the tools to force President Emmanuel Macron to accept her 28-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, as France’s new prime minister. When Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called the snap election on June 9, after a stinging defeat at the hands of the National Rally in French voting for the European Parliament, the deeply unpopular and weakened president gambled that the far right would not repeat that success when the country’s own fate was in the balance.