Politicians get up early to vote
Of the nearly 49.5 million French people called to the polls this Sunday to choose their new deputies, and therefore the new government under a new prime minister, among the first to rise are high-ranking political figures who aspire to be part of the new government team that will lead France.
Jordan Bardella, the prime ministerial candidate for the National Rally (RN), a favourite in the polls, voted mid-morning in the wealthy Parisian commune of Garches. The leader of the far-right party, Marine Le Pen, did so around noon in the town of Hénin-Beaumont, its historic stronghold in Pas de Calais, in the north of the country. In the same place, but a few hours earlier, practically at the opening of the polls at 8am, did the leader of the environmental party EELV, Marine Tondelier, who plans to return to Paris later to take part in a rally of the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), at night in the French capital's iconic Republic Square.
The outgoing Prime Minister and candidate for the Macronist Alliance Ensemble (Together) to reiterate his position, Gabriel Attal, has also already exercised his right to vote, in the same way as his predecessor and leader of the Macronist Horizons party, Édouard Philippe, who was head of government during the first years of Emmanuel Macron's presidency.
The former Socialist president and candidate for deputy in Corrèze for the NFP, François Hollande, also voted early, while the still president of the conservative Republicans, Éric Ciotti, whose alliance with the RN has caused a schism in the party of Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, did it in Nice.