About thirty thousand police will be mobilized in France on Sunday night, after the second round of early parliamentary elections, to prevent unrest in the context of the tense race for parliamentary seats, Reuters reported, citing French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, BTA reports.
Three candidate MPs have complained that they have been victims of attacks during the election campaign, the agency added. The second round of elections on Sunday will determine whether the far-right party "National Rally" Marine Le Pen's party will secure a majority in the lower house of the French parliament (the National Assembly) for the first time and form the next government of the country with the second largest economy in the eurozone.
The election campaign in France has been marred by increased violence along with rising political tensions, Reuters notes. Interior Minister Darmanin said he would be "very careful" about security on Sunday night, when the first results of the election are expected to be announced.
About 5,000 of the 30,000 mentioned will be police officers in the French capital Paris and its suburbs. They will "ensure that the radical right and the radical left do not take advantage of the situation and cause chaos," the minister told France 2 television.
Darmen added that four people had been arrested for an attack last night on government spokeswoman Prisca Thevne and members of her team while they were putting up election posters. Thevne was not injured, but her deputy and another party activist were injured by a group of about a dozen young people who tore down the posters, the spokeswoman told the French newspaper Parisien.
Marie Dochy, a candidate for the National Rally in the Savoie department, said she was attacked by a shopkeeper in a shopping mall yesterday. A 77-year-old deputy mayor of a small town near Grenoble in southeastern France was punched in the face on Monday morning while putting up a campaign poster of Olivier Veran, a former spokesman for President Emmanuel Macron and former health minister. Veran condemned the "absolutely unprecedented context of violence in this election campaign."
A Harris Interactive poll released on Monday showed the National Rally would not win a majority in the French parliament after the second round, Reuters reported. The Harris Interactive poll, conducted for Challenge magazine and RTL radio, said the National Rally and its allies would win between 190 and 220 seats. That is well short of the 289 seats needed to secure a majority.