French elections|France’s electoral system allows for tactics, to which at least some of the candidates’ withdrawals are likely to be connected.
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More than 200 left-wing and centrist candidates withdrew from the second round of the French parliamentary elections.
In the French elections, there has been a lot of talk about tactical voting, which is used to concentrate votes in an effort to prevent a far-right candidate from winning a constituency.
President Emmanuel Macron’s camp suffered a defeat in the European elections, and the far-right National Coalition continued its winning streak in the first round of the parliamentary elections.
in France more than 200 candidates withdrew from the second round of the parliamentary elections by Tuesday’s deadline, according to a French newspaper Le Monde.
According to the newspaper’s calculations, by Tuesday evening, 218 candidates had announced their withdrawal. 130 of them were left-wing candidates and 82 were president Emmanuel Macron from the centrist Jäsnes electoral alliance.
In addition, three candidates from the far-right National Alliance (Rassemblement national or RN) and two other center-right candidates withdrew from the race.
Candidates the withdrawal is likely to be partly related to efforts to prevent the far-right from gaining power in the second round of parliamentary elections, which will be held next Sunday.
Namely, the French electoral system enables tactical voting in a way called by name barrage républicain i.e. “dam of the republic”.
There are 577 constituencies in France, from each of which one MP is elected. If a candidate receives more than half of the district’s votes in the first round of the election, a second round is not necessary.
Next Sunday, the second round will take place in most constituencies where the most successful candidates from the first round are running. There are two, three or four of them, depending on the district.
In the second round, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if he did not receive more than half of the votes.
Tuesday the withdrawn candidates are mainly from constituencies where there were three or four candidates left. In theory, therefore, voters opposed to the power of the far-right could focus their votes on the same candidate and try to prevent the RN’s rise to power.
289 seats are needed for a parliamentary majority. RN’s party leader Jordan Bardella the real leader of the party stirring in the background Marine Le Pen has repeatedly said that RN will not form a government without a working majority.
On Tuesday, Le Pen said, according to the Reuters news agency, that allies could help her achieve a majority.
After the first round, it is estimated that the RN could get 250-300 seats in the parliament, reports Reuters. However, tactical voting and candidate withdrawals are not taken into account in the calculations.
President Macron announced early elections in early June, right after Macron’s camp suffered a stinging defeat to RN in the European elections.
However, contrary to Macron’s wishes, the RN continued its winning streak in the first round of the parliamentary elections, garnering around 33 percent of the vote.
According to Reuters, on Monday, Macron had said in a closed ministerial meeting that the highest priority is to prevent the RN from coming to power.
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