PARIS (Reuters) – The first round parliamentary election victory for France’s far right National Rally (RN) party will not spoil the festive mood as Paris hosts the Olympic Games, said the capital’s Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Tuesday.
“The party will not be spoilt. The festival will be a beautiful one,” Hidalgo told France 2 TV.
“I say to visitors from all over the world – come over! Because Paris is the city which still stands up for freedom and is a city of resistance,” she added.
The RN and its allies won Sunday’s round with 33% of the vote, followed by a left-wing bloc with 28% and well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s broad alliance of centrists, who scored 22%, official results showed.
The far right’s opponents are now trying to build a united front to prevent a prime minister from Marine Le Pen’s RN party moving into parliament, with the RN’s 28-year-old Jordan Bardella currently seen as likely to be France’s new PM.
“The game is not over. We have to mobilise all our forces,” said Hidalgo.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Jason Neely)
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