Four days before the first round of legislative elections in France, the candidates from the three main political blocs dramatized the issue and debated a hypothetical barrier against the far right, more favorite than ever.
The National Rally (RN) and its allies are credited with 36% of voting intentions, ahead of the New Popular Front (NFP), a coalition of left-wing forces (28.5%) and the center-right alliance around the outgoing majority (21%) of President Emmanuel Macron.
The vote takes place on Sunday, with a second round on July 7. The mobilization promises to be strong, with 60 to 64% participation expected, more than in 2022 (47.8%) or than in the European elections on June 9 (51.49%) and complicates the forecasts.
Already 250,000 French people living abroad voted online in 24 hours, as many as in five days during the 2022 legislative elections.
Faced with the earthquake that would constitute the arrival of the far right to power in France, some 200 personalities called on the other parties to “clearly display now” a withdrawal agreement with a view to the second round.
The presidential camp has so far favored a line “neither extreme right nor extreme left” before Emmanuel Macron decides.
Pusher
The leader of the Ecologists, Marine Tondelier (NFP), offered them a meeting with the Macronists to try to convince them to accept a “republican withdrawal”.
The question of the RN also torments the Jewish community of France. “We don’t vote for the extreme right, that’s it! “, launched Auschwitz survivor Denise Toros-Marter, expressing her “incomprehension” regarding the position of Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, who in the event of a duel between an RN candidate or the radical left La France insoumise, said that he would vote without “hesitation” for the RN. “I’m perplexed, he’s falling into the trap,” she said.
For his part, the leader of La France Insoumise asked his voters on Wednesday evening not to vote for the RN in the second round where left-wing candidates will no longer be present.
“We will tell them that no one has to do this stupidity, whatever their motive,” declared Mr. Mélenchon, who himself acts as a foil, including on the left.
“Today throughout the left, it was agreed that it [Jean-Luc Mélenchon] could no longer be the one who should lead,” declared former socialist president François Hollande, NFP candidate.
Right-wing leader Éric Ciotti (LR, right), who has allied himself with the RN, intends to win back right-wing deputies in the second round if his bloc does not obtain an absolute majority.
“I do not imagine that some of my friends would join a coalition which would include communists, socialists and the friends of Mrs Sandrine Rousseau”, affirmed the one whom the LR leadership has been trying to exclude from the presidency of the party since its alliance with the RN.
Dramatization
The day after a televised debate followed by around 5 million spectators, the climate of this lightning campaign became even more tense on Wednesday.
The historic leader of the RN, Marine Le Pen, accused the left of wanting to contest its announced victory “in the street”: “The extreme left has always acted through violence,” she said.
During the televised debate, Jordan Bardella, 28, expected to be prime minister in the event of a victory for the RN, stood out for his confidence in his camp’s victory.
He was opposed to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, 35 years old, and Manuel Bompard, 38 years old, representative of the left alliance.
Everyone dramatized the issue.
“In a few days, you will be called to the polls for a historic choice,” declared the leader of the RN.
The representative of the left Manuel Bompard called for “preventing fear from becoming a reality and ensuring that France does not descend into racism, hatred, every man for himself”.
“France has a meeting with its values and its destiny, I have confidence in you and I have confidence in us,” asserted Mr. Attal.
Thierry Beaudet, the president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, the third chamber of the Republic with the National Assembly and the Senate, estimated that the surprise dissolution decided by Emmanuel Macron on the evening of the European elections had plunged the country “into a political crisis and unprecedented democracy.
In “three weeks, no political group can listen to the suffering and aspirations of citizens, deduce a solid project, confront it with those of its rivals, pour it into the public debate, compose a list of 577 serious and prepared candidates”, he lamented.
Abroad, the vote is also raising concerns.
“After the elections, we will see how our relations develop,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said, while calling France “Germany’s most important and closest partner in Europe.”
