France Heads to Polls as Left-Wing Coalition Tries to Block Marine Le Pen

France could radically reshape its political future on Sunday as it completes a second and decisive round of voting in its parliamentary election. After the first round, Marine Le Pen ’s far right National Rally (RN) party seemed to be on course for securing an outright majority. The prospect of this prompted other left-leaning parties to band together and try and block her path. The strategy, referred to as the “republican front,” involves withdrawing hundreds of candidates in order to pool voters together to block National Party candidates. Should the effort fail and National Rally win a parliamentary majority, French President Emmanuel Macron would have to appoint a prime minister from the party—in this case, likely Le Pen’s 28-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella. Reuters reported that turnout stood at 26.3% by around midday local time, up from 18.99% during the second round of voting in 2022, according to the French Interior Ministry.

Read it at The Wall Street Journal

Read more at The Daily Beast.