Far-right wins first round of French election in Northern Catalonia

Far-right National Rally candidate Marine Le Pen won the first round of the French presidential election in Northern Catalonia ("Catalunya Nord") - that is to say, the Pyrénées-Orientales department - on Sunday. 

The politician won 32.47% of the vote there, surpassing current president Emmanuel Macron by over 12 percentage points, although almost a quarter of the electorate abstained. 

In Perpignan, where the far-right is already in power under mayor Louis Aliot, 27.39% of the electorate voted for Le Pen. Slightly over 25% voted for left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise, while just over a fifth of the city’s voters backed Macron. The abstention rate in Perpignan, like the rest of the department, was high: 30.76%. 

Macron’s liberal La République En Marche! did better in the country as a whole, obtaining 27.6% of the vote versus Le Pen’s 23.41%. The second round of the election, in which the French will have to choose between the incumbent president and the far-right candidate, will be held on April 24.  

27,000 French voters in Catalonia

Electoral data for Catalonia, where 27,000 French nationals have the right to vote, is not yet available.

Four polling stations were set up across Catalonia on Sunday: Barcelona’s Camp Nou auditorium; the Lycée Français Marguerite Yourcenar, in Reus; Centre Cívic Creu de la Mà, in Figueres; and the Centre Cívic Ter, in Girona.

French nationals in Catalonia can only vote if they have registered as residents in the consulate and request to be included in the registrar of voters. They can then either vote at a polling station in-person or by proxy.