After the Elysee, Parliament. The run of Emmanuel Macron, who won the presidential election on May 7 and nominated a prime government led for now by Edouard Philippe, it's not over yet: France has in fact a semi-presidential system, with many powers in the hands of the Head of State but a Parliament that expresses the government majority and the premier, necessary to carry on the reform policy. On 11 and 18 June the Assemblée Nationale is renewed, lower house of Parliament elected by direct suffrage (the Senate instead represents local autonomies): 577 seats to be reassigned, with two important changes.
PROHIBITION OF COMBINATION OF OFFICES - The first is that starting from this session, the law prohibiting the accumulation of representative mandates will enter into force: therefore, there will no longer be deputies-mayors, deputies-president of Region or president of Province. This will require a substantial renewal of the branch of Parliament elected directly by the citizens, given that in the outgoing legislature, 82% of those elected also hold a local office: only those who do not have an executive mandate, i.e. councilors (municipal or regional), will be able to continue to exercise it.
In any case, as many as 150 of the current deputies will not reappear in June: among them also prominent personalities such as former prime ministers Jean-Marc Ayrault and Bernard Cazeneuve or the last Minister of Economy Michel Sapin. There was also doubt over the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, currently a Euro-deputy, who instead then decided to take the field personally, strong with his 19,5% in the presidential elections, running as a candidate in all constituencies: the result of France Insoumise, a radical left-wing movement, will be one of the tips of the balance for the composition of the new Parliament, above all to understand how much consensus it will still erode for the Socialist or Republican parties, both already included in the majority by broad agreements that the new tenant has in mind of the Elysium.
A NEW PARTY – The second big news is precisely that the president is presenting himself at the legislative with a very young party, never represented in Parliament until now and which will hardly have the strength to win an absolute majority of seats. In the last three elections (2002, 2007 and 2012) the French actually confirmed the results of the presidential elections by rewarding the party of the incumbent president in the legislative elections, but in those cases it was the two parties historically of greater strength (depending on the republican and socialist years). Here instead with a movement, En Marche!, founded a year ago, the cohabitation risk exists and in fact it has already been cleared through customs by Macron himself with the appointment of Edouard Philippe, Juppé's man, as premier and Bruno Le Maire, former minister even with Fillon, as Minister of the Economy.
The Republicans they show up on June 11 in alliance with the UDI (Union of Democrats and Independents), a federation of 12 centrist parties that could erode the consensus of the newly elected president. However, he has already taken everything into account, declaring that he will form "a large majority ranging from the government left to the Gaullists". This would therefore exclude the need to resort to an agreement with Mélenchon, while it would take into account the Socialist Party, despite returning from the worst performance in its history in the presidential elections, with 6,36% gathered by Hamon. For socialists, that I am the outgoing majority party with 285 out of 577 deputies (not absolute majority but virtually reached with the 15 seats of the independent left and thanks to the 7 vacant seats), allying with Macron is the only way to stop the bleeding and confirm himself in government, hoping in any case to raise his head again after the debacle of the May 7th.
SURVEYS - According to the polls recently published by Les Echos, another scenario would still be possible: that En Marche!, in the wake of Macron's triumph, could alone reach an absolute majority with a fork currently identified between 249 and 286 seats, considering only metropolitan France, therefore not Corsica (traditionally right-wing) and overseas territories (closer to the socialists). The absolute majority is fixed at 290 deputies. Next would be the republican-centrist alliance with 200-210 seats (currently, combined, they have 226 deputies), then the collapsing PS with 28-43 possible deputies and finally the Front National with 15-25 (from the current 26 , however mixed with others in a mixed group) and the radical left which would not confirm the feat of the presidential elections, stopping at a maximum of 8 seats (there are currently 15). The scenario is more than plausible, given that among the 511 candidates on the lists of La Republique En Marche (LREM) there are representatives of all parties, from the MoDem of the centrist Bayrou (made Minister of Justice) to socialists and republicans, even with the formula of frozen lists where the candidates of PS e republiquains they have already formalized their subsequent support for Macron.
HOW TO VOTE - On Sunday 11 and Sunday 18 July, voting takes place in 577 electoral districts (each representing approximately 125.000 inhabitants), with polling stations open from 8 am to 18 pm (20 pm in large cities). All adult citizens vote and the ballot is based on a single-member majority criterion, divided into two rounds unless one of the candidates within the constituency obtains 50%+1 of the votes in the first round. Only candidates who reach 12,5% of the votes in the first round are admitted to the second round. More than two can therefore arrive at the ballot, and the one who gets the most votes simply wins (in the event of a perfect tie, the eldest passes).
