Lhe outgoing presidential majority will not present a candidate for the legislative elections in around sixty constituencies, including that of former socialist president François Hollande, where it will support the right-wing candidate, Gabriel Attal said on Monday on RTL.
“Our candidates are useful candidates against the extremes to prevent the extremes from coming to power. This is the case in almost all constituencies,” said Gabriel Attal. The majority united under the banner “Together for the Republic” presents 489 candidates in the early legislative elections of June 30 and July 7, in 577 constituencies.
“There are some constituencies, around sixty, where we know that it would not be our candidates who would be best placed to avoid the victory of the extremes. And in these cases, we support another candidate,” he added.
François Hollande, who is running in the 2nd constituency of Corrèze, is “a candidate in the France Insoumise alliance and therefore obviously, it is not this alliance that we want to see win for the country”, clarified Gabriel Attal , for whom “there are other candidates in the constituency (of Mr. Hollande, Editor’s note) more likely to avoid the victory of the RN”. He cited Francis Dubois, right-wing candidate, “who allows it under better conditions”.
One of his predecessors at Matignon, Edouard Philippe, provided another explanation on BFMTV and RMC: “The calculation that was made was to note that there was no candidate from the majority who was likely to be able to win,” he explained.
The leader of the Horizons party, which obtained 80 nominations among the contingent of the outgoing majority, estimated that these “sixty constituencies” left to other candidates, “this is not at all giving up on winning, it is on the contrary, give ourselves the chance to not leave French people the choice between the National Rally and La France insoumise.”
Because as Gabriel Attal summarized, “there are three choices”. “There is the alliance led by La France insoumise, there is the alliance led by the National Rally, the extremes, which would be a catastrophe in terms of the social climate (…) and which would result in a bloodletting for our classes averages”, and a “third block”, that of the presidential camp.
Although taken by surprise by the dissolution announced last Sunday by Emmanuel Macron, the majority of outgoing Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons deputies are returning for a new mandate.
According to the lists of nominated candidates, the majority does not present a candidate in constituencies held by elected officials from the right or left or from the centrist Liot group deemed constructive, according to consistent sources.
Twenty-four of the 35 ministers in the Attal government are candidates, starting with the Prime Minister in Hauts-de-Seine.
