PHOTO: LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
France went to the polls on Sunday for the second round of a crunch election that is expected to leave the far right as the dominant force in a divided and paralysed parliament.
President Emmanuel Macron called the snap elections three years ahead of time after his forces were trounced in June's European parliament vote, a gamble which seems to have backfired.
Far right leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) came top in the June 30 first round, and is on course to repeat the feat in Sunday's run off races.
But she may not win the outright majority that would force Macron to appoint Le Pen's lieutenant, the RN party leader Jordan Bardella, 28, as prime minister just weeks before Paris hosts the Olympics.
A hung parliament with a large eurosceptic, anti-immigration contingent could weaken France's international standing and threaten Western unity in the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
With the country on tenterhooks, last week saw more than 200 tactical-voting pacts between centre and left wing candidates in seats to attempt to prevent the RN winning an absolute majority.
This has been hailed as a return of the anti-far right "Republican Front" first summoned when Marine Le Pen's father Jean-Marie faced Jacques Chirac in the run-off of 2002 presidential elections.
Following the pacts, opinion polls forecast that the RN would fall well short of the 289 seats needed for an outright majority in the 577-seat National Assembly, while still becoming the largest party.
'CATASTROPHIC'
Such an outcome could allow Macron to possibly build a broad coalition against the RN and keep Gabriel Attal as prime minister on a caretaker basis.
But it could also herald a long period of paralysed politics in France, as it prepares to host the Olympics from July 26.
"Today the danger is a majority dominated by the extreme right and that would be catastrophic," Attal said in a final pre-election interview with French television on Friday.
Many in France remain baffled over why Macron called an election which could end with the RN doubling its presence in parliament and his contingent of centrist MPs halving in number.
But the president, known for his theatrical gestures, appears intent on executing what he calls a "clarification" of French politics, which he hopes will eventually leave three clear camps of far right, centre and hard left.
The final opinion polls published by two organisations on Friday projected the RN would win between 170 to 210 seats, followed by the New Popular Front (NFP) broad left-wing coalition on 145 to 185 and Macron's centrists on 118 to 150.
While Macron's Ensemble alliance is forecast to come third, the more successful NFP is a fragile mix of several warring factions ranging from traditional Socialists to the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) of firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon.
