Monday 19 June 2017

Not such a big win as predicted

Odd these election results. Macron's party En Marche! has a convincing overall majority, with 350 of the 577 seats, but of the other parties only the Front National and La France Insoumise, the two extreme wings, increased their representation, to 8 and 27 respectively. The socialist party and their allies went down to 44 (having been the majority in the last government) and Les Republicains now have 137.  But given the dire warnings of Macron winning over 450 seats commentators are now saying the victory is not as big as expected, so some amount of re-balancing has taken place. Inevitably there are calls for a change to the electoral system by Le Pen and Melenchon to introduce some kind of proportionality. But the rate of abstention at over 50% is the main concern.
As noted elsewhere, Tarn and Garonne resisted the Macron onslaught by re-electing both its retiring members, one Socialist and one Parti Radical Gauche, whose Sylvia Pinel was a minister in the last government.
Other notable points are that there are over 220 women representatives, a record compared to 155 last time and only 178 members were re-elected. This will definitely be a new look assembly.
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