Candidates make final push ahead of runoff

PARIS — The French far right and its struggling rivals make a final push for votes on Friday ahead of the decisive round of parliamentary elections that were called in a major gamble by centrist President Emmanuel Macron.

The National Rally, or RN, insisted that it could win an absolute majority in parliament, despite polls projecting the anti-immigration and euroskeptic outfit would fall dozens of seats short of the target despite being the largest party.

"I think there is still the capacity to have an absolute majority, with the electorate turning out in a final effort to get what they want," the RN's three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen told BFM television.

Tensions are growing as the clock ticks down to Sunday, with several physical assaults reported on candidates. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 30,000 police officers would be deployed nationwide on voting day.

Of the 30,000 police to be deployed nationwide on Sunday, 5,000 would be on duty in Paris so that the "far left and far right do not create disorder", Darmanin said.

More than 50 politicians and campaigners have been assaulted during the French election, the interior minister said on Friday.

Friday is the last day of legal campaigning, which by law must wind down at midnight ahead of a day of calm on Saturday before polls open in mainland France at 8 am on Sunday.

Both the centrist forces led by Macron and a broad left-wing coalition have agreed to withdraw more than 200 candidates from the runoff on Sunday after the June 30 first round, to avoid splitting the anti-RN vote.

'Catastrophic' first round

French footballer Kylian Mbappe stepped in to describe the results of the first round as "catastrophic"."We can't leave our country in the hands of those people," he said.

If the RN wins an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-member National Assembly, it would be able to form a government with Le Pen's 28-year-old protege Jordan Bardella as prime minister.

Macron's decision to call snap elections three years ahead of schedule after his party's drubbing in European Union Parliament elections has been seen as the biggest gamble of his political career.

A poll by Harris Interactive projected that the RN and its allies would win 190 to 220 seats in the National Assembly, while the latest Ifop poll on Thursday projected it would get 210 to 240 seats.

Xinhua