French far right says absolute majority possible

PARIS: The French far right National Rally (RN) is still capable of winning an absolute majority in parliament, three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said on Thursday, despite denouncing electoral pacts between the centre and the left aimed at thwarting its rise to power.

With three days left until the second round of the most critical legislative elections in France´s recent history, a poll projected that the RN would fall short of an absolute majority despite its success in the June 30 first round.

The outcome of the election will see if postwar France elects its first far-right government or enters into an era of potentially paralysing coalition politics.

The centrist forces of President Emmanuel Macron and a broad-left wing coalition have withdrawn over 200 candidates from the runoff on Sunday in a joint effort to ensure the far right is defeated.

“I think there is still the capacity to have an absolute majority with the electorate turning out in a final effort to get what they want,” Le Pen told BFMTV in an interview.

“I say turn out to vote as it´s a really important moment to get a change in politics in all the areas that are making you suffer right now,” she said.

If the RN wins an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-member National Assembly, it will be able to form a government with Le Pen´s 28-year-old protege Jordan Bardella as prime minister.

But she acknowledged that the “operation” by Macron´s centrists and the New Popular Front (NFP) coalition to withdraw candidates “had the aim of preventing the RN from having an absolute majority.”