The first real day of the new electoral campaign for the elections in France is about to end. Awaiting the legislative elections on June 30 and July 7, in a survey published today by the institute Ifopthe far-right Rassemblement National remains the leading party with 33% of voting intentions, followed by the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (28%) and by the centrist alliance of Emmanuel Macron (18%).
Rn and the “victory in the pocket” syndrome
Despite the strong result of the European elections which crowned the RN of Marine Le Pen and her protégé Jordan Bardella, the polls show a uncertain scenariowith a rearrangement of the three blocks that emerged from the 2022 elections, which could lead the French president, whose mandate expires in 2027, to a complicated cohabitation with a government of a different political color. And it is Rn himself, feeling that he has victory in his pocket, adding fuel to the fire. As? Announcing that the pension reform which raises the legal age to 64″will be repealed in the autumn” in case of victory.
The outgoing Rn MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy said this. A symbolic measure of Macron’s second five-year mandate, the reform approved last year and which had unleashed waves of protests across France“will be repealed in the autumn, following consultation with the social and economic partners” if the RN wins the elections of 30 June and 7 July, Tanguy told Bfmtv. According to the RN exponent, the law will be repealed in the autumn so as not to “cause chaos” during the Olympic Games.
What is happening to the French electorate, which is leading the two extremes of the political arena to take first and second place? What appears to work, on the right as well as on the left, is a typical trait of contemporary populism, that is, the constant presence of the exaltation of the people and the anti-elitist propaganda of which Macron now appears to be the emblem. To this we now add the “threat” of intervention in Ukrainewith the relative outlay of men and means.
The protests and the fear of abstentionism
Faced with the prospect of an Rn government, tens of thousands of people demonstrated over the weekend and more 200 athletes they invited in the newspaper The team to vote against an extreme right that “manipulate” the fear for “split“. “Extremism is at the gates of power, we have the opportunity to decide the future of our country“, said the star of Real Madrid and the French national team, Kylian Mbappe. The French Interior Ministry announced today that in a week it has released approximately 410,000 delegations so that those who cannot go to vote can give their vote to someone of their choice, six and a half times more than in the same period of the 2022 legislative elections. The reason is also linked to voting periodthe second shift coincides with the start of the summer school holidays.
Exactly two years ago, a strong sanctioning vote hit Macron. Le president, in fact, had not only been pressured by Le Pen and Mélenchon, but also condemned by the strong abstentionism. To explain that patchy result, not only the high abstention but a sort of “revenge” against Macron’s arrogance: according to polls, 70% of citizens really didn’t want to know about giving full powers to the outgoing president and attend a repeat of the first term. Thus, militant voters had decided to challenge Macronism in the lower house, through the legislature.
Renaissance chooses not to run in 60 districts
Now Renaissance and its allies have decided not to present candidates in around sixty constituencies including the one in which he is running François Hollande, in Corrèze, even if Macron’s camp will not support the former socialist president, who is running with the Socialist Party as part of the New Popular Front of the Left. “Our only candidacy criterion is the available vote in the first round. In all constituencies where we are unable to do so, we have no candidate. François Hollande remains a candidate of the LFI and allies that we do not support“he said to Bfmtv a participant in a presidential majority meeting that had been organized by Macron. According to the lists of candidates published on Sunday evening by the 3 parties Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem – he reports again Bfmtv – the majority will not present candidates in the constituencies of the outgoing conservative LR MPs Michèle Tabarot, Marie-Christine Dalloz, Virginie Duby-Muller, Emilie Bonnivard, Nicolas Forissier and Julien Dive.
What, therefore, happened two years ago could happen again. Then a sort of “vote of rejection”.
The French political landscape seemed almost upside down compared to five years earlier. The “republican front”, which until then was formed at every election to block the far right, is now functional in blocking Macron.
