The electoral campaign to renew the French Assemblée Nationale officially begins from tonight at midnight. A lightning campaign: thirteen days and we will know whether Macron’s gamble to dissolve parliament after the defeat in the European elections will turn into a boomerang for him and a revolution for the country. Yesterday the deadline for submitting candidacies for the 577 constituencies expired, which already shape a completely earthquake-ridden political landscape. The parties have disappeared, three blocs are going to clash, with some flaws in the declared alliances.
THE RIGHT
On the right, the Rassemblement National led by Prime Minister Jordan Bardella takes advantage of the historic pact with the hard wing of the neo-Gaullists led by the president of the Républicains Eric Ciotti. About seventy candidates with a single neo-Gaullist flag and national rassemblement. Ciotti is the most famous, he will bring the common cause of the far right and the neo-Gaullist right to his fiefdom in Nice. However, none of the outgoing deputies or the big names of the party followed him. The “loyalist” Républicains will have to wait for the court ruling (expected at the end of the week) to find out who now owns the copyright of the logo. In the meantime, the non-pro-Gaullist neo-Gaullists Rassemblement National have presented independent candidacies, even if non-belligerence pacts with the presidential camp are looming in several constituencies. All this happens in a climate of growing tension. Yesterday the outgoing neo-Gaullist MP (not aligned with the RN) Jean-Jacques Gautier, who is appearing in the Vosges, reported having received death threats signed by a self-styled “RN commando of the department”: “Give up or we will kill you”. Culture Minister Rachida Dati, Sarkozy’s former minister, expressed immediate solidarity.
France, demonstrations and marches against the far right: tensions are growing ahead of the vote
THE LEFT
On the left, the alliance of the new Front Populaire will have to struggle to keep together components ranging from ex-president Hollande – the most famous candidate and former political godfather of Macron, who takes the field in his Corrèze – up to the anti-capitalist Philippe Poutou known as “the spokesperson of Hamas”. The France Insoumise party, which is also the strongest in the coalition with 277 candidates, is the one most targeted. Its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, tribune of the radical left, accused of cultivating anti-parliamentary ideas, of Putin’s past and of authoritarian practices, yesterday tried to reassure allies and voters by saying for the umpteenth time on live TV that «if you don’t want be prime minister, I won’t be prime minister.” Criticism is now open even within his party. Yesterday Adrien Quatennens – supported by Mélenchon – withdrew his candidacy and was convicted in 2022 of marital violence. However, the candidacies of three internal opponents of the leader were confirmed. «I will never be the problem of the Popular Front – Mélenchon said yesterday – but I would like to know when this target shooting against me will end. Defaming me and defending professional politicians only serves the interests of our adversaries.”
THE MACRONIANS
Campaign also underway for the presidential camp, where the coalition still appears to be affected by the decision to dissolve parliament taken by Macron in great secrecy, with particular disdain from Prime Minister Attal who would have preferred resignation to this flash campaign marred by polls which still do not indicate no reversal of the situation compared to the European ones. The maneuvers began immediately to try to gain votes in the moderate areas on the right and left, now reduced to almost zero. On the left, the line is to attract “social democrats” who struggle to vote for a coalition in which there is a strong and broad radical fringe. Yesterday, the position of Macron’s former Transport Minister Clement Beaune, coming from the left, and not confirmed in government because he disagreed on the immigration law, appeared significant. Beaune remains a candidate in Paris for the Macronian Renaissance party but has announced that if elected he could sit in an independent group. «I have points in common with ecologists and socialists, but if they are allied with France Insoumise it is a problem – he said yesterday – Now we cannot be allies, but we could work together tomorrow. I think, like many, that in the new parliament we will have to organize ourselves in a new way and that we will need coalitions of social democrats, moderates, republicans and secularists who reject extremism.”
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