LOC19:51
16:51 GMT
PARIS, May 23 (KUNA) -- French President Emmanuel Macron's party, Republic on the March (LREM), is facing a serious challenge from the extreme right National Rally (RN) party in the forthcoming European elections on Sunday, polls indicated.
The LREM movement, heavily backed by the French leader, is neck-and-neck with the RN party led by Marine Le Pen, the former leader of the extreme-right National Front.
Both parties are polling between 21 percent and 22.5 percent, which with a 3 percent margin of error means either could emerge with the top number of European Deputies after the vote.
Le Pen has called on Macron to resign if he does not win the European elections, but that is a highly unlikely scenario even though Macron has been under severe pressure from six months of "Yellow Vest" social protests which forced him to make massive concessions worth close to Euros 20 billion (USD 22.5 billion) to try to buy social peace.
France has a massive 34 different political lists on the ballot for Sunday's vote, but several of these have said they would form alliances if they qualify with Deputies in the parliament which will elect 705 deputies compared with 751 in 2014 due to the departure of British Deputies in line with the Brexit accords.
Britain is however forced to have elections on Thursday as they have delayed their Brexit procedure too long, but the parliamentarians from the British vote are unlikely to sit in the assembly that alternates principally between Brussels and Strasbourg.
Under the latest post-Brexit redistribution of seats, France is entitled to elect 79 Eurodeputies compared with 74 in 2014, when the National Front (now called the National Rally) won the highest percentage of votes with 26 percent.
Voter turnout next Sunday is predicted to be particularly low, with around 60 percent of those polled by Ispos and Elabe pollsters saying they would not vote.
In any event, the ballot will be a test of how Macron's reforms and his recent concessions have been felt throughout France, which is badly splintered over the broad choice of candidates on Sunday. (end)
jk.ibi