The lists of candidates in the 577 constituencies for the legislative elections of 30 June and 7 July have closed in France. he leader of the Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen, has declared that in the event of a large victory for her party in the legislative elections she will not ask for the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron. “I am respectful of the institutions, I do not appeal to institutional chaos,” she said in an interview with “Le Figaro”.
The electoral campaign officially begins today in France, for the early legislative elections of 30 June and 7 July, called by the president Emmanuel Macron after his party’s defeat in the European elections and after the success of Rassemblement National Jordan Bardella and of Marine Le Pen.
Marine Le Pen stated in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro that, in the event of victory of the Rassemblement National (RN), he will not ask for the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron. “I am respectful of institutions, I do not ask for institutional chaos. There will simply be coexistence,” Le Pen said.
In France there will be voting in 577 electoral constituencies and the candidates of all parties have validated their candidacies by 6pm yesterday, Sunday 16 June. Twenty-four of the 35 government ministers of Gabriel Attal they ran, starting with the prime minister himself, candidate in the 10th constituency of the Hauts-de-Seine, the same one in which he was elected in 2017 and 2022.
Which sides are competing in the elections on June 30th in France
The alliance of the right announced by Eric Ciotti with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National will be able to count on the commitment of “at least 62 candidates”, announced the president of the Republicans, ensuring that others will be added to these. The Gaullists of Les Républicains (Lr) split over the decision of the president, Eric Ciotti, to ally himself with the Rassemblement National (Rn). For their part, the Républicains nominated “nearly 400 candidates in 93 departments and in the constituencies of French people living abroad”, as the party reported. The president of Reconquête!, Eric Zemmour, announced the nomination of 330 candidates. Despite failing to reach an agreement with the RN, Zemmour’s party, which has Marine Le Pen’s niece, Marion Marechal, at its side, chose not to present itself in almost half of the seats to favor “the architects of national unity” like Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, president of Debout La France, a small right-wing outfit that entered the Lepenist orbit, and Ciotti.
On the left, however, a New Popular Front was formed in a very short time, ranging from the socialists to La France Insoumise (LFI) of Jean-Luc Melenchon.
More than sixty French sports personalities called on the L’Équipe website to vote against the far right. Among them, the former athletes Marie-José Pérec and Monique Ewanje-Epée, the sailors Isabelle Autissier and François Gabart, the former footballer Vikash Dhorasoo or even the former rugby players Serge Betsen and Fulgence Ouedraogo or the former tennis player Yannick Noah. Inviting the French and “especially the young generations” to vote in the legislative elections, the captain of the French national football team Mbappé said he wanted to defend “the values of diversity, tolerance, respect. I hope we will still be proud to wear this shirt on July 7,” he added.
“Young people who speak to young people, obviously, play their role when they invite them to carry out a civic duty which is to vote. Many young people find themselves behind Kylian Mbappe”, French Prime Minister Attal told RTL, according to whom the electoral programs proposed by the French far right and far left are “unworkable”.
According to Gabriel Attal, “retirement at 60 would be impossible to finance.” And he bluntly rejected the programs of the two sides, because they would be an “economic catastrophe”.
“They are the first politicians to betray their voters even before being elected. They want to eliminate everything, it is unachievable”, Attal said again. “Do we want a country that suffers the worst economic crisis of the century? This would happen with extremists.”
“Our candidates are useful candidates to prevent extremists from coming to power,” Attal said. “I am the prime minister, I am the one leading this campaign – he added – I am the one who, with our candidates, proposes another path, a positive path for the future of the country”.
“There are three choices: the alliance led by LFI and the one led by RN, which are at the extremes and would be a catastrophe, and there is a third block, the one that we lead”.
The Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni considers Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National an “opportunity” and a “challenge”, as reported by the newspaper “Les Echos”, which noted that the Italian prime minister “remains cautious regarding a rapprochement with the Rassemblement National”. For the Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron’s defeat at the last European elections and the difficulties that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is going through represent an “unexpected margin for maneuver in the negotiations that will open to designate the future European Commission”, the newspaper wrote again .
