In 2022, Sophie Mette won her seat with only 444 votes in advance. In his constituency, the presidential majority suffered an immense setback during the European elections, making the victory of the union of the left or even the National Rally likely.
Le Figaro Bordeaux
The new National Assembly will not have the same face as the old one. After the surprise dissolution announced by Emmanuel Macron on the evening of the European elections, the official list of candidates for the legislative elections was published this Sunday, marking the start of a lightning campaign to encourage the French to go to the polls on June 30 and July 7 . In the ninth constituency of Gironde, outgoing MP Sophie Mette (MoDem) only won with a 444-vote lead in 2022. Her re-election is therefore far from guaranteed, despite the support of the leader of her party, François Bayrou.
Monday, the mayor of Pau came to galvanize his troops in the South-West, in the hope that the two outgoing MoDem deputies, Sophie Mette in Gironde and Geneviève Darrieussecq in Landes, will retain their position at the end of these early elections. . For now, it’s a challenge. During a press conference in La Brède, François Bayrou targeted the two blocs which threaten macronism, believing that “the idea that we will now separate each other from each other in a country where we must unite each other” would be “the unacceptable”. Despite obvious anger and distrust towards the political class expressed at the polls, the Palois judges that “Now it’s too serious” and hopes for a surge in favor of the presidential coalition.
“The war of one against the other”
“We are no longer in programs, we are in values”insisted François Bayrou. “Should we live together or should we perpetually wage war against each other? I think that the virtue of the center is precisely to be able to speak with some as well as with others as long as they are in good faith. However, the former Minister of Justice staunchly supported the argument relayed by his camp, seeking to put the National Rally and the new popular front on the same level, by raising the risk of a prime minister from La France insoumise.
A technique condemned on France Inter this Monday morning by the former socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who recalls “that La France insoumise had 328 candidates in 2022, it now has 229, and while the Socialist Party had 70 in 2022, it has 175”. The bloc of socialists, ecologists and communists represents 297 candidates and could therefore gain a certain ascendancy over the radical left. “The idea that there would be a submission” at LFI then appears to the former adversary of Jacques Chirac as “a false analysis”which would also be read in the program of the popular front, quite distant from that of LFI on several divisive subjects.
A risk of triangulation with the far right
Faced with Sophie Mette, who had only collected a few hundred votes more than her opponent Insoumis, the new popular front also designated a socialist this time: departmental councilor Corinne Martinez. In the ninth constituency of Gironde, which includes the municipalities of Bazas, Belin-Béliet, La Brède, Captieux, Grignols, Langon, Podensac, Saint-Symphorien and Villandraut, voters however placed the RN well ahead of the European elections on June 9, with 19,106 votes, or 33.47% of the votes cast. The list of the presidential majority, carried by Valérie Hayer, only collected 7,542 votes. For Sophie Mette, the task therefore seems elephantine, if only to succeed in achieving the same score as in 2022 (14,732 votes), with in front of her a representative of the RN now able to qualify for the second round and a more consensual candidate invested by the new popular front.
In this constituency, Sophie Mette still came first in the first round in 2022, benefiting from the momentum driven by Emmanuel Macron’s victory and narrowly ahead of the Nupes and RN candidates. In the second round, the gap was tiny in the duel between the presidential majority and the left. But this time it could be a threesome. To remain in the second round, candidates must obtain the votes of 12.5% of those registered on the electoral lists, or around 13,000 people. In 2022, the RN candidate obtained 12,008 votes and that of Reconquête 2136. In the elections of June 9, Jordan Bardella and Marion Maréchal combined 21,827 votes. The four main left-wing parties obtained a total of 16,982. With three blocks that everything seems to oppose, the outcome of the elections of June 30 and July 7 in this constituency therefore seems particularly uncertain.
