Announced as the favorite, the outgoing RN deputy Pierre Meurin narrowly missed out on consecration in the first round of voting this Sunday, June 30, with 48.69% of the vote. He will meet, for the second round on Sunday, July 7, the socialist Arnaud Bord, who came in far behind with 27.38% of the vote.
At 7:30 p.m. this Sunday, June 30, the town hall of Alès, the central office of the fourth constituency of Gard, was not the scene of an extraordinary turnout. Quickly, the results of the polling stations of the city included in the fourth constituency fall. Except in three districts (Prés Saint-Jean, Tamaris, Les Cévennes), Pierre Meurin, outgoing RN deputy, comes out on top by a wide margin. He is also victorious in the rest of the constituency, in Pont Saint-Esprit, Rousson and Saint-Ambroix.
“I am obviously confident”
Until mid-evening, the National Front candidate was hoping for a consecration in the first round. His score ended, finally, just on the verge of this hoped-for great victory. But, quickly, he minimized the disappointment and said he was already ready for the second part of the campaign, which he expected to win easily. “I am obviously confident, provided that the voters turn out again to convert the test.” Those who voted for Nadia El Okki, the presidential party candidate who came third, are now his target, calling on them to have “a republican conscience” in the face of “a block of unreason” that the New Popular Front would represent.
Just like in 2022, he will meet, in the second round, the socialist Arnaud Bord, invested by the left-wing coalition, and whom he does not fail to chip away at. “I said the same thing two years ago when he was at Nupes: we are accountable for our alliances. When we ally ourselves with a kind of baroque coalition, with anti-Semitic far-left people like Philippe Poutou and Raphaël Arnault, listed as S, I consider that we dishonour ourselves politically, even though we claim to be moderate.”
A gap to be filled for the left
For his part, his socialist opponent returns the compliment: “I can be caricatured as Pierre Meurin does, by citing two or three candidacies of the Popular Front. He has more than fifty candidacies with racist and homophobic remarks. He is the extreme.”
Although he highlights, in his eyes, an improvement in his score compared to 2022, Arnaud Bord is aware of the gap which separates him from the RN’s score. “But this gap can be largely filled with a real mobilization of the Republican camp”he maintains. He too is counting on a transfer of votes garnered by the candidates of Ensemble and the Republicans: “I may not be the ideal candidate for them for this second round, but in any case, I am the most serious and the one who, I am sure, will correspond to their values. The equation is simple: we must bring together humanists, progressives, all those who want a democracy of reason, and not one of chaos maintained by the National Rally.”
From this Monday, the two candidates intend to get into battle order to win the election in a lightning campaign. Under these conditions, Pierre Meurin makes no secret of it, “I am rather reactive, but not triumphalist”. A term that he has repeated several times since the dissolution. Arnaud Bord, for his part, admits that he has not used all the cards in his hand. The final race, on this part of the Gard, promises to be deleterious.
Nadia El Okki as a “resister”, Pierre Martin calls for a vote of conscience
Nadia El Okki (Ensemble)
Coming in third place with 16.36% of the vote, the presidential party candidate said: “very happy with the score” carried out and calls for mobilization against the RN: “I thank the voters for their trust,” she continued. “I had intended to stop politics, but because of the direction the country is taking, I will continue to resist. It is very difficult, today, to give a voting instruction. What I can say is that if there had been a three-way race with me in third position, I would not have stayed. I did not want to be the one who made the RN win.”
At the same time, Pierre Martin, elected member of the Alès majority and LR candidate (6.10%), prefers to draw conclusions from the result of this first round, and on the positioning of the right: “I was predicted to get 3%, we finally got an interesting score given the situation. But the voice we are proposing was not heard. I hear the expression of the citizens of the constituency, which is in line with national logic. But for me, there is not 100% support for the two blocs (RN and NFP, Editor’s note). I call on everyone to vote according to their conscience. For our part, we must rebuild the Republican right.”
