French in the run-off: it's time for truth. Record turnout at 12pm

The French return to the polls today to vote for the just over 500 seats still to be assigned after the first round which has already elected 76 deputies.

There are 49.3 million eligible voters, they can go to the polls from 8am to 8pm, but the closing time varies from one municipality to another, between 6pm and 8pm.

No results, apart from those relating to abstentions, can be communicated before the closing of the last polling station (at 8pm), the official and definitive ones will be announced by the Constitutional Council.

At midday there was a record turnout: 26.63% according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. It had been 25.90 at the same time as the first round. There hasn't been such a high figure since 1981.

In her latest statements yesterday, Marine Le Pen returned to the attack on Ukraine, recalling that with Jordan Bardella relations with Kiev will change and in particular Kiev will be prevented from using the weapons supplied by France to attack Russian territory.

To get out of the impasse that will result from the results of the polls and the three opposing blocs (Le Pen and Bardella, Macron and Prime Minister Attal, Nouveau Front Populaire of Mélenchon and Glucksmann), we are already thinking of a broad coalition, perhaps led by a above the fray and extended from the Républicains to the communists. And of a "counterbloc" with the extremes of Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon representing the opposition.

Emmanuel Macron, at the origin of this unprecedented situation in France with his decision to dissolve Parliament after the defeat in the European elections, is already at work. His plan, the success of which remains to be demonstrated, is to transform himself from head of the majority into the balance of power of a large coalition of moderates of all tendencies who would keep a "national union government" in place.

Meanwhile, after some indecision, Bardella's position has returned to that of refusing to hold the role of prime minister unless he has an absolute majority.

(Unioneonline)