Simon Hunter
SPANISH Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reacted this morning to the results of the first round of parliamentary elections in France, which saw the far right secure an unprecedented win.
“I am not taking for granted that the far-right will win in France,” he said ahead of the second round of voting in the neighbouring country, which will take place on July 7.
“Let’s see what happens on Sunday, I have hopes that the left will mobilise,” the leader of the Socialist Party (PSOE) said during an interview with the Cadena SER radio network.
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party and its allies won 33.1% of the vote at yesterday’s polls, with the left-wing New Popular Front alliance taking 28%, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc trailing with 20.76%.
The result marks the first time that the far right has won the first round of a parliamentary election in France.
Sanchez said that yesterday’s result means that ‘we should be alert’, but offered his own solution for how to defeat the far right, by governing with ‘progressive measures’.
“That is the best way to combat fake news and disaffection [among voters],” he told radio presenter Angels Barcelo.
The prime minister’s comments come after the conservative Partido Popular won the most seats at the recent European elections. With 34% of the vote, the PP swept up 22 seats in the European Parliament, with the Socialists managing 30% of the vote and 20 seats.
What’s more, a new far-right group called Se Acabo la Fiesta (The Party’s Over) took more than 800,000 votes at the European elections, thanks to the Telegram group run by its leader, Alvise Perez.
Measures for the media
Sanchez also explained on Monday morning that he would be appearing in the Congress of Deputies on July 17 to announce measures that will include limits on public financing for news media and ensure greater transparency.
“I will appear to present the Spanish government’s democratic action proposal,” he said. “We will amend the law covering the right to honour and an amendment to the law on institutional advertising, which has not included the phenomenon of digitization until now.
“For hoaxes to be financed with public resources is unacceptable,” he said.
Sanchez announced he would be taking these steps after a lawsuit was brought against his wife, Begoña Gomez, for alleged influence peddling based mostly on newspaper headlines, several of which had already been debunked as untrue.
Asked during his interview on Monday morning about the allegations, he said that there was ‘nothing, absolutely nothing’ contained in the case against her and that she had not committed any kind of irregularities during her professional career.
