After dozens of withdrawals, the starting line for the second round of legislative elections will be known on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m., and should, year in, year out, confirm the formation of a “republican front” against the National Rally.
Enthusiasm is certainly not there, but withdrawals of Macronist or left-wing candidates are taking place in most constituencies where at least three candidates were qualified and where the Le Pen party is in a position to win.
The goal is to prevent the RN from obtaining an absolute majority on Sunday evening in the second round. If it were achieved, the opponents of the far-right party would then face the eminently complex task of forming a majority or an alternative government capable of leading France.
A moral authority on the left, the former general secretary of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, warned in an interview with AFP on Monday against any “hitch in the Republican withdrawal”.
For his part, Jordan Bardella, president of the RN and ready to enter Matignon, denounced “alliances of dishonor” to block him, and called on voters to grant him an absolute majority “in the face of the existential threat to the French nation” that, according to him, the left-wing alliance New Popular Front represents.
– Clear photography –
Candidates for the parliamentary seat have until 6:00 p.m. to submit their application to the prefecture. It is at this point that a clear picture will emerge.
But at this stage, according to AFP findings, more than 150 candidates have withdrawn from more than 300 three-way races initially planned for the first round.
Among these, for the moment, there are a majority of representatives of the NFP, as well as three ministers (Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, Marie Guévenoux, Fadila Khattabi).
The LFI candidate withdrew to Calvados to favour the election against the RN of the former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, which the left had nevertheless vigorously fought on pension and immigration reforms or on the use of article 49.3 on the budget.
The same approach was taken in Tourcoing, where the candidate nominated by the NFP withdrew so as not to risk seeing the RN beat Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
Left-wing leaders have expressed their dissatisfaction with the hesitations or reluctance of some in the presidential camp.
“We have applied a clear rule (…): not one vote for the National Rally, not one more seat for the National Rally. And we really want the Macronist camp to show the same clarity,” declared the coordinator of the Insoumis Manuel Bompard on France 2 on Monday evening.
– “Not a single vote” for the RN –
Emmanuel Macron told his ministers gathered at the Elysée that “not a single vote” should “go to the far right”, recalling that the left had mobilized against the RN in 2017 and in 2022, allowing its own accession to the Elysée, according to a participant.
A way of responding to those who, in their majority, put the RN and La France Insoumise back to back, accused of having flirted with anti-Semitism during the European campaign. First and foremost, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
The presidential speech also serves as a warning to candidates from his own party, Renaissance, who would be reluctant to leave the field open to a left-wing candidate better placed against the RN.
On Sunday, the navy blue wave swept through with more than 10.6 million votes, or 33.1% of the vote, a historic level – excluding the second round of the 2022 presidential election.
In the first round on Sunday, the RN elected 39 deputies, starting with Marine Le Pen in Pas-de-Calais. The party with the flame, allied with Eric Ciotti, qualified in 443 of the 577 constituencies and is in the lead in 296 of them.
For the first time since World War II, the far right could rule France. And other political forces have few options to stop it.
Jordan Bardella has already made it known that he would refuse the post of Prime Minister if he did not have an absolute majority. But if he gets close, he has not ruled out relying on other right-wing MPs to enter Matignon.
If the RN could not govern, the Macronists, the left and the right-wing party Les Républicains (LR) would probably be forced to innovate by forming a coalition broad in its spectrum but weak in the number of deputies because it would most likely exclude the Insoumis.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal thus expressed his hope on Monday evening on TF1 that a “plural assembly” would emerge from the ballot boxes, while the LR president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand called for a “government of national revival”.
Such a “grand coalition”, common in European countries, is alien to French political traditions. But it could be their only option.
