Macron’s side still in with a chance in French election – here’s how

Where we are at:

• Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party has taken the lead in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday,

Earlier post on this:

• First round of French election – “Macron’s centrist alliance suffered staggering losses”

EUR/USD has popped:

• EUR/USD has popped a little higher

A higher EUR seems a bit of a conundrum. I am not expert on French politics but I’ve done some digging around and there does seem to be a good chance still for the current governing side in France.

Where we are at, France 24:

• RN (that’s Le Pen) and its allies on the right took 33.2% of the vote, ahead of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) on 28.1%, according to projections by pollsters Ipsos-Talan. Macron’s Ensemble alliance trailed in third place with 21%, followed by the conservative Les Républicains and their partners on 10%.
• Based on those figures, the far-right camp would go on to win between 230 and 280 seats in the National Assembly, the pollsters added, leaving it short of the 289 seats required to win an absolute majority.

(There are 577 seats in France’s National Assembly)

The next round of voting is on July 7.

Other sources add:

• The high turnout on Sunday means some 300 constituencies are now facing potential three-way run-offs which, in theory, favour the RN.
  To prevent these three-way run-offs and block the RN, France’s centre-right and centre-left politicians have long practiced what they call a “republican front,” whereby the third-placed candidate drops out of the race and urges voters to rally behind the second-placed candidate.
• candidates through to the run-off have until Tuesday evening to decide whether to stand down or run the second round.

This ‘republican front’ move is what the ‘centre’ of French politics is now relying on to hold onto power and deny RN. Seems like a thin reed to be clutching at given there is so much voter mistrust of major parties, not just in France.

Gonna be an interesting week!

EUR update:

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.