Story highlights
En Marche! predicted to succeed in first round of legislative elections
Macron aiming for majority in French Parliament
After that famous handshake with President Donald Trump and a Sicilian “bromance,” this week just got even better for new French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron, whose intriguing handshake with Trump and meeting in Sicily with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went down a storm on social media, is looking in good shape going into next month’s French legislative elections.
He is hoping to secure a majority in the first round ballot on June 11.
According to two polls, Macron’s new centrist party, En Marche! is in first place, followed by the center-right Republicans and the far-right National Front of Marine Le Pen in a close race for second and third. The leftist party of Jean-Luc Melenchon trails in a distant fourth.
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Just over half the people polled in one of the two surveys said they would like Macron’s party to get a majority in the 577-seat parliament.
En Marche! which pledged that half of its candidates would be women appears to have kept its word with 255 women and 256 men included on the list.
If Macron does not persuade enough voters to back his candidates, he will have to strike deals with other parties in order to push through his legislative agenda.
Read: Emmanuel Macron’s tricky to-do list
French parliamentary elections take place in two rounds, like the presidential election.
If no candidate in a district gets a majority in the first round on June 11, the top two candidates will have a runoff on June 18. Macron was elected to office after a landslide victory over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
Matou Diop in Paris and CNN’s Richard Allen Greene in London contributed to this report.
