French elections: violent attacks shock the country ahead of crucial vote

Image source, REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Legend, Prisca Thevenot (left) and her deputy (center) returned to Meudon on Thursday with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal

Author, Paul Kirby
Role, BBC News in Paris
3 hours ago

A growing number of candidates and activists in France have been the target of violent or verbal attacks ahead of Sunday’s tense final round of legislative elections.

Government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot was putting up election posters with her deputy and a party activist in Meudon, southwest of Paris, when they were savagely attacked by a gang of youths.

Other campaigners have been attacked across France, reflecting the febrile mood in politics, with the far-right National Rally (RN) party the favourite to win the election.

The motive for the attack on Ms Thévenot and her colleagues is unclear, but she returned to Meudon on Thursday with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who condemned “attacks of intolerable cowardice”.

Footage filmed from a building shows young people crowding around the candidate, her deputy Virginie Lanlo and an activist from President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble party.

Ms Thevenot told Le Parisien that when she and her colleagues objected to youths defacing party posters, “they immediately attacked one of my activists, injuring Virginie”. Ms Lanlo was injured in the arm, while the activist was punched and hit with a scooter, leaving her jaw broken. The car’s windscreen was also smashed by the scooter.

Three teenagers and a 20-year-old man were arrested by police and the incident was quickly condemned across the political spectrum.

Mr Attal called for “rejecting the climate of violence and hatred that is taking hold”, while RN leader Jordan Bardella said that one of his “major commitments as Prime Minister” would be to “fight against record insecurity and recidivism”.

Image source, YOAN VALAT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Legend, Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally, believes that there is still a chance of absolute victory on Sunday

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that 30,000 police officers would be deployed across France for Sunday’s vote to prevent “the far left or the far right” from causing trouble.

The BBC spoke to voters in his constituency in northern France on Thursday who said they feared young people would turn out, regardless of who wins, to express their anger at the political system.

Law and order is one of the RN’s top priorities, alongside immigration and tax cuts to tackle the cost of living crisis.

RN candidates have also been the target of attacks. Marie Dauchy said she was “violently attacked” while campaigning at a market in La Rochette, near Grenoble, in the southeast of the country.

A conservative candidate allied with the RN, Nicolas Conquer, complained of being pelted with eggs, as well as a colleague. Last month, another RN candidate was hospitalised after being attacked while distributing leaflets.

After winning 33.2% of the vote in the first round of early elections, called unexpectedly by President Macron, Mr Bardella’s party is now aiming for an absolute majority in the National Assembly, which has 577 seats.

But his political opponents have agreed to do everything they can to prevent the far right from winning enough seats to form a government.

Seventy-six seats were won outright in the first round by candidates who received more than half of the local votes in their constituency, including 39 RN candidates and their allies.

The remaining 501 seats will be awarded in the second round, and 217 candidates who came in third place withdrew from the race to give a rival a better chance of beating the RN. Of these 217 withdrawals, 130 candidates came from the New Popular Front (left) and 81 from the Macron alliance.

Marine Le Pen complained bitterly about the operation aimed at obtaining “massive withdrawals” and blamed those who sought to “stay in power against the will of the people”.

However, she said she believed there was still a chance of an absolute majority if voters turned out en masse.

According to the latest Ifop poll, the RN would win between 210 and 240 seats, less than the 289 needed to form a government. This is less than the 240 to 270 seats it was expected to win in the first round.

There are, however, fears among some French minorities about what the RN might do if it comes to power.

It aims to give French citizens “national preference” over immigrants for employment and housing and to abolish the right to automatic French nationality for children of foreign parents, if these children have spent five years in France between the ages of 11 and 18.

People with dual nationality would also be excluded from dozens of sensitive jobs.

A Muslim woman from a constituency that voted 54% for RN last Sunday told the BBC that RN was gaining ground with each election.

On the eve of the Euro quarter-final between France and Portugal in Germany, France team captain Kylian Mbappé called on voters to “make the right choice”.

After the “catastrophic” results of the first round on Sunday, he declared “we cannot put the country in the hands of these people”, without specifying who he was talking about.