Former French President François Hollande has surprisingly announced his candidacy in the upcoming parliamentary elections in France. Hollande said on Saturday in Tulle in his home region of Corrèze in central France that he had made this decision because “the situation is serious” – “more serious than it has ever been”.
The danger from the extreme right is there. “Since the liberation (from the Nazis), the extreme right has never been so close to power.” The socialist added: “In an extraordinary situation, an extraordinary decision.”
Hollande admitted that it was very unusual for a former president to stand for election as a member of parliament in a constituency. The 69-year-old was a member of parliament for Corrèze from 1988 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2012. He was president of France from 2012 to 2017.
Hollande supports the merger of left-wing parties that want to stop the right-wing populist Rassemblement National (RN). When asked whether he also wanted to become prime minister, Hollande replied that it was not about his personal advancement: “I was President of the Republic, I am not striving for anything for myself personally.” He called on the French to stop the right-wing populists in the second round of voting.
People across the country took to the streets on Saturday to protest against the shift to the right. According to the organizers, including unions and left-wing parties, 640,000 people took part in the protests, with 250,000 participants in Paris alone. The Paris police prefecture reported a figure of 75,000 demonstrators in the French capital.
The right-wing nationalist party Rassemblement National (RN) collected around 31.5 percent of the votes in the European elections about a week ago. In response, French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament and called for new elections to the National Assembly at short notice. These will take place in two rounds on June 30 and July 7.
In national parliamentary elections in France, MPs are elected according to a majority voting system with two rounds: if no candidate in a constituency receives an absolute majority in the first round, a second round is held in which the candidate with the most votes wins.
According to polls, the RN could achieve a similar result in the parliamentary elections as it did in the European elections. This would make the party the strongest force in parliament and could possibly even provide the prime minister.
