French voters head to the polls on Sunday to choose their deputies in a decisive runoff showdown in the second round of legislative elections between French President Emmanuel Macron’s party and his Together and New People’s Union coalition.

French President Emmanuel Macron, re-elected for a second term, and his supporters in the Together coalition are hoping for an outright majority after defeating the rival bloc in the first round.
The Together coalition includes President Macron’s Ennahda party, the former Republic on the Move, the Modem party, and the right-wing Afaq movement, which won 25.75 percent of the vote in the first round.

On the other hand, the New People’s Union bloc, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which includes the parties France Proud, the Greens, the Socialist Party and the French Communist Party, managed to gain 25.66 percent of the vote in the first round, and they are expected to receive between 170 and 220 seats.

The New People’s Union seeks to impose a coexistence government on the president of the republic if he wins a majority of seats in parliament.

The far-right National Rally came third in the first round of French legislative elections held on Sunday, losing to President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition and the Alliance of the Left with 18.68 percent of the vote.

Far-right Marine Le Pen leads the National Rally party, which lost in the second round of last April’s presidential election to President Macron.

Legislative elections are taking place at a time when the country is experiencing an alarming rise in consumer prices, which are the main driver of inflation in France, such as basic food, gasoline and consumer goods, with the French government unable to lower or reduce these prices . . This rise in prices is one of the reasons that upset the French street and led to many voters not showing up to the polls in the first round, as the French Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the abstention rate reached 52.80 percent, up from 51.30 percent. in 2017.