The first round of early legislative elections is being held this Sunday, June 30. Eighteen candidates are in the running in the three constituencies of Cher. Profiles, balance of power: we take stock of the issues at stake in this election.
An unprecedented campaign is coming to an end. Unplanned, lightning fast, disconnected from a presidential election but part of the immediate aftermath of European elections that have consecrated the extreme right, towards which 45% of the votes in Cher went. It is this level of the extreme right, this dynamic that does not change, and the ability of the National Rally (RN) to qualify candidates in each constituency of the department that will be scrutinized this Sunday.
Two years ago, with sluggish participation (49%), the Lepenist party was for the first time, without anchoring or campaigning, invited to the second round in two of them. No victory, despite the clear erosion of the Republican front, but an incontestable surge. Will this be confirmed? What rebound capacity for the presidential majority? What momentum for the united left? What weight for the anchoring of outgoing deputies?? And what mobilization??
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This is a crucial issue: a jump in participation, by lowering the threshold for qualifying for the second round, would change the situation, by favoring three-way races. Let us recall the rule: if none of the candidates reaches the 50% mark in the first round with the votes of at least 25% of citizens registered on the electoral lists, the first two are qualified for the second round. But if one of the other candidates manages to gather the votes of at least 12.5% of registered voters, he is also qualified for the second round. However, surveys conducted on a national scale seem to outline a strengthening of mobilization, which could be confirmed by the large number of proxies registered.
Three outgoing deputies in the running
In the first constituency, the outgoing Renaissance MP François Cormier-Bouligeon had flown through the first round in 2022 (32%), ahead of the young PS-Nupes candidate, Alex Charpentier (24%). The RN (22%), embodied by Julie Apricena, had not crossed the qualification threshold. The context has changed. The casting too. François Cormier-Bouligeon is certainly still in the running, with the same substitute as two years ago, the mayor of Fussy Denis Coquery, who had taken over from Bernard Rousseau, mayor of Pigny who died last March.
But the New Popular Front (NFP) is presenting a new candidate. This time it is sending a more political profile, the Berry deputy for Urban Planning Hugo Lefelle, leader of the socialist group in the Department, who is campaigning alongside his substitute Christelle Petit, mayor of Aix-d’Angillon. The RN has preferred a Parisian communicator from the party, Ugo Iannuzzi, to Julie Apricena, RN leader in Cher, who has become the RN candidate’s substitute in the third constituency. Another major change: the absence of the right, historically anchored in this constituency (long held by Yves Fromion), despite the setbacks in the last elections. In 2022, its inability to qualify for the second round had already been seen as an earthquake. Which party will benefit from this situation?
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The absence of LR is also a reality in the second constituency. Adrien Baert, whose campaign momentum had undoubtedly counted in the elimination of the outgoing MoDem, Nadia Essayan, two years ago, is not there. The face of the right this time: Philippe Bulteau, mayor of Vignoux-sur-Barangeon, not invested, but supported by LR. The former parliamentarian has not disappeared from the game, since she takes on the role of substitute for the young Mehunois Gabriel Behaghel, who is running under the Horizons banner.
After the little-known Christine Poly, who managed to reach the second round in 2022 in the second constituency, the RN is this time presenting a young elected official from Méreau, Bastian Duenas. All will face the outgoing MP, Nicolas Sansu (PCF-NFP), who won back his seat (lost in 2017 to Nadia Essayan) two years ago against the RN. After Yvon Beuchon, who was then the mayor of La Chapelle-Saint-Ursin, the former mayor of Vierzon has chosen a figure from the Bourges conurbation as his substitute, its DVG president Irène Félix.
Another outgoing candidate intends to return to the benches of the Palais Bourbon: Loïc Kervran, in the third constituency, who is running under the banner of Édouard Philippe’s party, Horizons, which has broken away from the presidential majority and has the ambition of building a “new majority”. Two years ago, the man who had snatched the seat of deputy from Yann Galut (DVG, then PS) in 2017 came out on top in the first round (32.6%), before winning, after a campaign conducted at a frenetic pace, against the RN Thibaut de la Tocnaye. This time, the latter gave up his place to the media-savvy Parisian lawyer Pierre Gentillet.
Among the elected officials who were committed alongside Loïc Kervran: the mayor LR
of Saint-Amand-Montrond, Emmanuel Riotte, his deputy (he succeeds Nora Viviani), as well as senator DVD Marie-Pierre Richer, or even the LR mayor of Dun-sur-Auron, Louis Cosyns. New illustrations of a divided right, to the extent that LR is in the running, with, as was the case two years ago, the vice-president of the Department, Bénédicte de Choulot, in charge of Social Affairs and insertion, who had failed to create momentum after the crushing defeat of his party in the Presidential election.
The United Left, for its part, is banking on the student from Berry, Emma Moreira, in this constituency targeted for La France Insoumise. In 2022, another Insoumise, Alienor Garcia Bosch de Moralès, had invited herself onto the third step of the podium, obtaining nearly 9,000 votes. A base that was confirmed during the last European elections: the left bloc collected, with a slightly higher turnout, five hundred additional votes.
He calls himself “in party sleep”.
