France Set to Deploy 30,000 Police Ahead of Parliamentary Election

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The National Rally finished first in last Sunday’s first-round election with 33% of the vote, followed by the New Popular Front (NFP) alliance with 28%.

The interior minister added that 5,000 police would be on duty in Paris and the surrounding area so that the “radical right and radical left do not take advantage of the situation to cause mayhem”.

The announcement comes after a growing number of political candidates and activists in France have been targeted by violent or verbal attacks. On Wednesday evening, a group of youths were arrested after Prisca Thevenot, the government spokesperson, said she and her deputy and a party activist were attacked while putting up campaign posters in Meudon.

“I don’t say this only as spokesperson of the government, but more as the daughter of immigrants and mother of mixed-race children,” Thevenot told French broadcaster TF1, citing repeated and intensified racist attacks. “They no longer do it anonymously, but with uncovered faces and even with a certain pride.”

But National Rally candidates have also come under attack, with European Parliament Member Marie Dauchy saying she was “violently assaulted” while campaigning at a market in La Rochette near Grenoble.

Conservative candidate Nicolas Conquer also complained that he and a female colleague had been pelted with eggs following an incident the month prior, when another National Rally candidate had to be treated in the hospital after he was attacked for handing out pamphlets.

Sunday’s voting is expected to lean heavily in the favor of the National Rally and it may allow them to become the biggest party in parliament, even if they are unable to reach the 289 seats needed to form the next government, The Guardian reported. And Le Pen on Thursday claimed her party could reach a majority if the voter turnout is high.

“I think there is still the capacity to have an absolute majority with the electorate turning out in a final effort to get what they want,” Le Pen told BFM TV. “I say turn out to vote, as it’s a really important moment to get a change in politics in all the areas that are making you suffer right now.”

However, more than 200 candidates across France’s political spectrum have withdrawn their candidacies as a way to allow whatever party would be best equipped to defeat the National Rally a clearer path. The latest polling also suggests the National Rally will win 210-240 seats – just short of the 289 needed to form a government.