Keystone-SDA
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June 18, 2024 – 5:02 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) Twelve days before the first round of legislative elections in France, far-right leader Jordan Bardella declared Tuesday that he would not run for the post of Prime Minister if he is not certain of having a majority absolute in the National Assembly.
Tipped as future head of government in the event of his camp’s victory, the head of the National Rally (RN) declares that he will “need an absolute majority” at the end of the elections of June 30 and July 7, called for the general surprise by President Emmanuel Macron after his debacle at the European elections on June 9.
“I want to be in a position to act,” said the president of the RN, whose party came well ahead of the European elections and is leading the opinion polls, with 33%, on the media Cnews/Europe 1. voting intentions.
“Not a collaborator of the president”
In the event of cohabitation with Emmanuel Macron, Mr. Bardella “does not plan to be a collaborator of the president” but demands “the power to change policy in our country”. However, “if there is a relative majority, the Prime Minister cannot act”.
To “create the conditions for this majority”, he stressed having “extended his hand” to the right-wing party Les Républicains (LR) and its president Eric Ciotti, who imploded his party by accepting an unprecedented alliance with the far right.
If he obtains the majority, Mr. Bardella’s “first measure” will be to pass an amending budget including a reduction in value added tax (VAT) on energy and fuels, while the power to purchase is one of the central subjects of the campaign.
On the other hand, the abolition of VAT on “essential products”, promised by the far right, will wait until the next budget, “at the start of the school year”.
Repeal the pension reform
On Monday, Mr. Bardella also said that he would repeal “from the fall” the controversial pension reform, adopted under the leadership of Mr. Macron in the spring of 2023 after months of protest, trying to remove the vagueness on this subject, a point of friction with Eric Ciotti who is in favor of reform.
“There are emergencies and reforms,” pleaded Tuesday the one who says he is preparing to “inherit a country in a situation of near bankruptcy” and first wishes to carry out “upon (his) arrival” an “audit of the state accounts”, while the state of public finances is the subject of debate.
The European Commission must open the way on Wednesday to disciplinary procedures for excessive public deficits against around ten European Union countries, including France.
“Everything is approximations or denials”
Is the far right preparing people’s minds for possible renunciations? “The reality is that at the National Rally, everything is approximations or denials,” denounced Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on the franceinfo media.
According to him, “when it comes to Jordan Bardella, there is less and less of a program and more and more conditions, it starts to look like a refusal of obstacles”.
A “third way”
Mr. Attal defended the “credible” proposals of the “third way” which he claims to embody, between the “extremes” of the RN on the right and the New Popular Front on the left which “promise, in their programs, a fiscal bombardment to all levels to finance their budgetary follies”.
Polls so far give less than 20% of voting intentions to the presidential majority.
Search for a headliner on the left
Meanwhile, the left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front, credited with 28% of voting intentions, is still looking for a leader, at the risk of exposing its divisions.
Mathilde Panot, one of the leaders of La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left), thus affirmed on the France 2 channel that it would be up to the party with the “largest group in the National Assembly” on the left to “propose to the others forces the name of a Prime Minister”.
This could benefit the party of the very divisive Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has nominated 229 candidates, compared to 175 for the Socialists, 92 for the Environmentalists and 50 for the Communists.
The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, defends another path and demands “a vote” from future deputies of the New Popular Front if the left is in the majority on the evening of July 7.
