Based on 90 percent of the total votes counted on Sunday evening, Ensemble garnered 25.37 percent (5.1 million votes), while the pan-left NUPES led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon has gathered up to now 24.31 percent (4.9 million votes), partial results. of the French Ministry of the Interior.
A second round of voting is scheduled for June 19. If after that, Ensemble fails to reach the 289 threshold for an absolute majority, which major pollsters predict as a possibility, Macron will become the first reigning French president to fail to achieve a parliamentary majority. since the 2000 election reform.
“The truth is that the presidential party, after the first round, is mistreated and defeated,” Mélenchon said on Sunday after the first projections were announced.
Sunday’s vote was overshadowed by low voter enthusiasm, with voter turnout projected at 47% according to Home Office data, the lowest in the first round of parliamentary elections since 1958, when established the current Fifth French Republic.
The partial results of the Interior Ministry also indicated that the far-right National Demonstration and the established right-wing party Republicans and their allies were lagging behind, with 19.9% and 10.58% respectively. Meanwhile, right-wing political commentator Éric Zemmour, whose new far-right party Reconquista! had garnered less than 5% percent of the vote in the first results; he has not qualified for the next round of voting for the parliamentary seat he had run for.
Like the presidential election, parliamentary elections in France operate in a two-round system. If no one wins more than half of the votes in the first round, all candidates who have received at least 12.5 percent of the registered voters qualify for a second round.
The Elysée announced in May that government ministers who are defeated in parliamentary elections will have to resign from their cabinet posts.
Among the 15 ministerial officials running in the election, many are at risk of losing, including Clément Beaune, Europe’s chief minister, who has been highlighted in France’s response to the crisis. Ukraine.