Paris: France was voting today in round one of a parliamentary election tipped to give Socialist President Francois Hollande the majority needed to implement his tax-and-spend programme.
Hollande defeated right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy in last month’s presidential election and has called for voters to turn out en masse to give him the mandate to enact reforms as the country struggles through a financial crisis, rising joblessness and a stagnant economy.
Final opinion polls before today’s vote predicted the Socialists would not see a landslide victory but would, with their Green and hard-left allies, emerge with a narrow but workable majority.
The vote will also be a litmus test for Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant National Front, after she won 18 percent of votes in the first round of the May presidential election.
As polls predicted that 40 percent of election-weary voters might not bother to cast their ballot, the president appealed to electors to exercise their democratic right.
“I will only be able to bring about change, the change that the French have asked me to bring about, if I have a majority in the National Assembly,” he said Thursday during a visit to the northern town of Dieudonne.
After taking 51.6 percent of the vote in the May 6 presidential run-off, Hollande moved quickly to give the Socialists an edge in the parliamentary elections, which include a second round vote on June 17.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s interim government has taken a series of popular steps, including cutting ministers’ salaries by 30 percent, vowing to reduce executive pay at state-owned firms and lowering the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers. But Sarkozy’s UMP party has hit back with warnings that the Socialists are preparing huge tax hikes to pay for what the right says is a fiscally irresponsible spending programme.
UMP leader Jean-Francois Cope said the Socialists are preparing “the biggest-ever tightening of the screws on the middle class” while ex-premier Francois Fillon said the party will “massively boost taxes” if given a majority.
The economic backdrop is bleak for whoever wins the parliamentary vote, with unemployment at 10 percent, stalled growth, and a resurgent eurozone crisis. But analysts say it is unlikely Hollande will be forced into what the French call “cohabitation” by a right-wing win in the parliamentary vote.(AFP)