These are actually the days of the Tour de France and tomorrow the French men’s football team will play in the semi-finals of the European Championships. On the national holiday, July 14, there will be a big parade, festivals and fireworks and two weeks later the Olympic Games will start.
It could have all been so beautiful. Now it has become politically exciting.
That’s good in the first place. France
is a vibrant democracy with a politicized population. Proof: In yesterday’s second round of the National Assembly, voters in hundreds of constituencies voted differently than in the first round. Where Candidates from Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) threatened to winDuring the second round of elections, many citizens reoriented themselves and also gave their votes to people with whom they disagreed politically. Leftists voted for rightists and rightists voted for leftists. Most importantly, the Lepenists did not get through. Although the right-wing radicals became stronger than ever, the majority of the French prevented the RN from marching, with a historically high turnout.