French President Emmanuel Macron greets his supporters after he voted at the city hall in the second round of the parliamentary elections in Le Touquet, France on June 18, 2017. (Xinhua/Kristina Afanasyeva)
PARIS, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Parliamentary election continues in France where more than 47 million voters are heading to polling stations on Sunday to choose their new deputies to the lower house of parliament.
Analysts say the lower house seats are likely to be dominated by President Emmanuel Macron's The Republic On The Move (LREM) centrist party.
Created only one year ago, the multiform movement is on the way to confirm a landslide majority in the runoff, with many voters, discontent with traditional major parties' poor achievements, wanting the novice head of state to have a strong say to inject fresh blood into the country haunted by wane economy, rampant unemployment and high security risks.
In the first round of parliamentary election a week ago, LREM and allies from the MoDem party recorded big gain with 32.32 percent of the ballots cast, or more than 400 seats of the 577-member lower house, or the National Assembly.
For the runoff, an Odoxa survey released on Friday showed voters will hand an outright majority to LREM and its centrist allies. They were set to snatch between 430-460 seats, where the minimal number needed for taking an absolute majority is 289.
LREM and its allies, holders of an absolute majority at the National Assembly, will hold all the institutional levers to pass controversial reform of the labor market, a pro-business mechanism to accelerate growth and set on ground a plan for new anti-graft legislation with which Macron wants to impose new ethics in public life after fraud scandals overshadowed France's 2017 presidency campaign.
In the French mainland, 67,000 polling stations are set to close at 20:00 local time (1800 GMT) on Sunday in big cities and at 19:00 local time (1700 GMT) on the same day in other places.
