Dince the evening of June 30, the National Rally (RN) became the leading party in France. In Bayonne, he rose to second place (25.27%), in the first round of the early legislative elections. The New Popular Front (NFP), the left-wing alliance, is ahead of it by 13 points (38.69%). A party of Bayonne activists campaigning for its candidate in the 5th constituency, Colette Capdevielle (PS), attended the counting of the city’s 30 polling stations from City Hall.
Historic participation requires (66.86%), the final count will be slow in coming. When the mayor leaves his office, around 9:30 p.m., to announce the results, all the NFP staff have already reached the party headquarters, Place des Gascons. Discreet exit, without cries of joy. However, the party improves its score in the 2022 legislative elections by 10 points. However, many have had difficulty getting used to the idea that in the Labourdine capital, until then not very favorable to the far right, the RN is distancing itself from the party of the presidential majority of 386 votes. Arriving in third place on the podium, the latter did not collapse (23.60% of the votes).
Serge Rosso, unknown to the general public, has accumulated 5,840 votes, compared to 5,454 for the outgoing MoDem MP, Florence Lasserre. The Neo-Biarrot almost triples the score achieved by the Le Pen candidate, Pascal Lesellier, during the 2022 legislative elections. The city’s chief magistrate, Jean-René Etchegaray (Renaissance), is taking a hit. “We can only note an extremely high number of votes for the RN. Even if, in volume, it is less than what we can see in neighboring cities (1). I would even say more, in the villages in the interior of the Basque Country.”
“Thrive and Grow”
Even compared to the recent European election, on June 9, the RN is winning ballots in all the Bayonne polling stations. It is in the northern ones, more popular, that it weighs the most (around 30% of the votes cast). But its progression is also important in the city center, at Petit Bayonne, at Arènes, etc. “There is a political space for us. We are going to try to make it prosper and grow,” assures Pascal Lesellier.
The Bayonnais does not give up, these balances of power foreshadow a new electoral geography of the city that could be favorable to him. In 2020, his candidacy in the municipal elections had barely gathered 679 readers. “I am already working with this in mind on a large gathering of the different rights. The goal is to be present in the second round, or even become the first opposition force,” projects Pascal Lesellier.
Colette Capdevielle may also notice the navy blue wave, but she tempers this local triumph of the RN: “This result occurs in an unprecedented political context, after the European elections and early legislative elections driven like a sort of poker move … Everyone had to return to the polls on June 30, still stunned by what had happened. I can’t imagine such a panorama for the municipal elections. This is an election for which we cannot hide behind a poster. »
(1) In the outskirts of Bayonne, Lahonce, Mouguerre and Villefranque placed Jordan Bardella’s party in the lead on June 30.
