PARIS: French President Francois Hollande is on track to win a solidpar liamentary majority after a first-round election, bolstering his position as he tries to persuade Germany to promote growth more in tackling the euro zone crisis.
Sunday’s vote left Hollande’s Socialist Party bloc likely to secure the 289 seats needed for an outright majority in the National Assembly on its own, and almost certain to do so with its Greens Party allies on board, polling institutes said.
Runoffs will be held next Sunday among the leading parties in constituencies where no one scored 50 percent. Initial projections based on a partial count of the first round suggested the Socialists alone could win 283 to 329 seats.
The projections indicated Hollande may not need to rely on eurosceptic hard leftists to pass legislation, relieving him of a potential headache as Berlin pressures its partners to start moving towards a fiscal union in Europe.
“The realisation that the crisis is serious and that the government needs elbow room to get the country back on track is playing in favour of the government winning an absolute majority,” said Stephane Rozes at the CAP political consultancy.
Socialists were muted in their reaction, anxious to keep the pressure on supporters to vote in the runoff, but winning power in the lower house for the first time in a decade would be a triumph for the left after it took the Senate in 2011 and won the presidency in May after 17 years on the outside.
“Change is beginning,” Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said. But he warned: “Everything hinges on next Sunday.”
Hollande needs a coherent majority to back him on adjustments to the 2012 budget to reflect sickly growth, and on a tax reform including raising taxes on the wealthy to fund spending plans.
Even more crucial will be possible legislation in the months ahead to grant European Union institutions more power over national budgets, something that would be hard to get lawmakers outside his party to swallow.
A lurch back into crisis has increased the pressure for the euro zone to mutualise its debt and integrate its bank sector to protect depositors and governments – measures that the bloc’s paymaster Germany says it will only consider if member states agree to deeper fiscal integration.
Hollande broadly supports the integration that Merkel is now demanding, but being reliant on hard leftists or conservatives to grant more budget power to Brussels would carry the risk of calls for a referendum and could trigger street protests.
Hollande flies to Rome on Thursday to discuss the crisis with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. (Reuters)
