“French democracy speaks and it scares”. Sunday evening, this is what Madeleine von Holzen, the editor-in-chief of the Swiss daily, titled her editorial The weather. A concern expressed after the results of the first round of early legislative elections, which saw the far-right National Rally party win a large plebiscite.
Its score in the first round of this election is in fact unprecedented, with 33.2% of the votes obtained, ahead of the New Popular Front (28.1%) and the presidential majority (21%), in decline.
“The French Republic seems injured,” laments the New York Times
Across the Atlantic, for the prestigious American daily New York Times, The conclusion is clear : “The French Republic seems wounded, its divisions heartbreaking”. And the newspaper records the defeat of the presidential camp: “The result of the vote is a serious setback [pour Emmanuel Macron, ndlr] after betting that the victory of the National Rally in the recent elections to the European Parliament would not be repeated”.
Same story from the magazine The Economistwho speaks of ” Hard blow “ and D’“crushing humiliation” pour “the centrist alliance”. A “new dramatic era” opens in France, deplores the British media, for which “President Macron’s bet backfired spectacularly”.
As to Financial Timeshe decided to put on the front page of his website the photo of Marine Le Pen, re-elected in the first round in her constituency of Pas-de-Calais. “These elections bring France closer to a potential nationalist government, which would cause shock waves throughout Europe,” he acts.
“An ungovernable National Assembly”
With this new political situation, the New York Times is clearly not optimistic about the outcome of the second round of voting with “an absolute majority for the RN, i.e. an ungovernable National Assembly”. And this is not the Free Belgium who will contradict his American colleague.
“This Sunday, June 30, will undoubtedly go down in history as a prelude to the triumph of the French far right.”, underlines its editor-in-chief, Dorian de Meeûs, in an editorial. Its title is intended to be just as evocative: “Legislative elections in France: a dizzying fall into the unknown.”
However, the NOW does not exclude “a second scenario” at the end of the second round, in which “There would be two large blocs of right and left opposed to Mr. Macron, and his very small centrist party would be stuck between the extremes.” and sentenced to “relative helplessness”.
A way of voting that has changed for the French
For his part, the Wall Street Journal seems to be mourning a way of voting of French voters in the face of extremes: “For decades, France’s two-round voting system functioned as a bulwark against parties at the ends of the political spectrum, encouraging voters to let off steam in the first round and then coalesce around one candidate from the establishment to the second. »
But this period is now a thing of the past, according to the Argentine newspaper. Clarionwho acts that “Marine Le Pen’s far right obtained its first demonized victory” from the hand of “the French electorate”.
A barrier to the fragile RN?
How big will the barrier be against the RN next Sunday? For the editor-in-chief of Time, “the question which arises now is that of possible withdrawals to block and beat the RN candidate in a three-way race”. But this configuration “usually gives more chances to the extreme right”according to her.
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