What are the consequences for Corsica in the event of a triumph of the National Rally?

With more than 33% of the vote, the National Rally triumphed in the first round, and qualified for the second round in 485 of the 577 constituencies of the national territory. In Corsica too, three of its candidates remain in the running for the deputation. What would the advent of the far-right party change for the island? Elements of an answer.

The navy blue wave was announced, it is a tidal wave that these legislative elections offered to the National Rally: with 33.15% of the votes cast, the far-right party – and its allies led by Eric Ciotti, contested president of the Republicans -, came out on top in the first round, easily ahead of the left-wing formations of the New Popular Front (27.99%), as well as the presidential party Renaissance and its allies of the Modem and Horizons (20.04%).

Furthermore, the candidates of Marine Le Pen’s party and Jordan Bardella won first place in 297 constituencies – out of 577 -. Better still, 39 candidates invested by the RN and its allies have already been elected as deputies.

Long indifferent to the trends of the continent, draped in its regional particularism, Corsica is no longer escaping them: with 46,126 votes, the National Rally stands out as the leading political force for these legislative elections, ahead of the score of the best placed Femu a Corsica and PNC candidates (Michel Castellani, Jean-Félix Acquaviva, Romain Colonna and Paul-André Colombani, who collected 40,527 votes between them).

The addition of the votes collected by the entire nationalist family (namely those of the 9 candidates Femu a Corsica, PNC and Core in Fronte) brings this total to 49,433 votes. Above, therefore, the number of RN votes, but still below the number of ballots slipped into the ballot box in favor of all the far-right parties present in the first round (namely those of the 9 candidates Rassemblement national, Mossa Palatina, Renconquête, and non-label/sovereignist): 50,749.

While no RN candidate had previously reached the second round in Corsica, the party has this time achieved a major coup, by winning the qualification of its candidates in the four constituencies [Sylvie Jouart, dans la deuxième circonscription de Haute-Corse, s’est depuis désistée pour soutenir François-Xavier Ceccoli, ndlr].

A clean sweep for the National Rally, in line with its overwhelming victory three weeks earlier in the European elections, during which its president Jordan Bardella obtained 40.76% of the votes in Corsica – 9 points more than at the national level -. And an unprecedented situation that forces the other island political forces to question themselves, to draw conclusions. And perhaps to reinvent themselves.

“All this seems to me today to promise a reconfiguration, including of political life in Corsica in this disorder and chaos, This is how Jean-Martin Mondoloni, co-president of the right-wing opposition group in the Territorial Assembly, analyses. A reconfiguration of the political landscape, and the right, obviously, will contribute to it. In any case, he specifies, the right in which I identify, namely the so-called regionalist and republican right.“

If the greatest precautions are taken while waiting for the vote next Sunday, the projections already show at least a relative majority for the party with the flame. The first estimates from Ipsos-Talen give between 230 and 280 seats for the RN and its allies. It is even more according to the Elabe polling institute, which credits them with 255 to 295 deputies in its projection – that is, for the highest range, the possibility of seeking an absolute majority, greater than 289 deputies.

If this second option were to come to fruition, beyond 289 deputies, the National Rally would therefore obtain an absolute majority in the National Assembly. The presidential majority would have to coexist in the lower house with the opposing party, and Emmanuel Macron would be forced to appoint a Prime Minister from the ranks of the opposing camp – Jordan Bardella, the RN has already warned -…

In other words, an absolute majority in the Palais Bourbon would provide the National Rally with a counterweight that is as unprecedented as it is decisive, particularly with regard to the adoption of bills in the face of the presidential majority.

This new national situation would have a direct impact on Corsican issues. Starting with the hobby horse of the island majority, the Beauvau process. Questioned yesterday evening after the announcement of the results of the first round, Gilles Simeoni no longer seems to believe in the future of the work carried out for the autonomy of the island, and initiated two years ago.Clearly, the parliamentary majority that emerges from the ballot boxes next Sunday will not be in a position, and will probably not have the will, to continue the process in this form.“, regrets the president of the executive council of Corsica.

In addition to the autonomy process, it is also the proposed law on a university hospital in Corsica – the only region in France that does not have one – which could fall by the wayside.

Brought forward by Paul-André Colombani, it was to be scheduled for examination on June 13: the dissolution put an abrupt end to it, as it did to all work in progress. With the recomposition of the hemicycle of the lower house, it is impossible to say when the bill could be discussed again, or if it will simply be during the next term.

Same question for other files particularly followed in Corsica, such as the bill on the end of life, that on the agricultural law, or that on the regulation of furnished tourist accommodation and other Airbnb.

The turnout for this first round at the national level is the highest recorded in 27 years: 66.71% of registered voters went to the polls. A level not seen since 1997.

Will there be even more participation in the second round? What is the purpose of the constituencies where three-way races will take place? How many candidates will choose to withdraw in favor of one of their opponents? These questions will determine the final composition of the hemicycle of the Palais Bourbon, and therefore by extension, of the new government with which the Corsican elected representatives will have to deal.