As the first act of the legislative elections approaches on Sunday, the left-wing parties rallied on Wednesday to the idea of withdrawals in the second round to block the National Rally, more and more confident in its victory and which issued a warning on the distribution of powers over defense and diplomacy in the event of cohabitation.
Information to remember:
- According to a latest survey, the RN brings together nearly 36% of voting intentions
- Marine Le Pen considers the title of head of the armed forces “honorary”
- The New Popular Front announced that it would withdraw in the event of a triangular, when an RN candidate would be able to win
- It is “important to move away from extremes”, says Victor Wembanyama
- French volleyball star Earvin Ngapeth “encourages votes against the RN”
- LFI withdraws nomination from candidate for anti-Semitic messages
- Glucksmann calls on the majority to “get out of neither-nor”
- Gabriel Attal accuses Bardella of supporting “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic” candidates
More than 2 million proxies registered
Since June 10, 2,124,918 proxies have been registered, announced the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior and Overseas Territories on she detailed.
#legislatives2024 I As of June 26, @Interieur_Gouv counts 2,124,918 proxies established. This is twice as much as during the last legislative election! 3/4 of proxies are made online. If you want to make yours, don’t delay!⌛️https://t.co/nYoi8pU8Nr
— Spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior and Overseas Territories (@PorteParoleMI) June 27, 2024
The RN still largely in the lead in voting intentions, according to a survey
The National Rally and its allies are still largely in the lead with 36% of voting intentions three days before the legislative elections, according to an Ipsos-Fondation Jean-Jaurès-Cevipof-Institut Montaigne poll for Le Monde covering nearly 12,000 people and published on Thursday.
According to this vast study, which does not offer projections in terms of seats, the left united within the New Popular Front would gather 29% of the votes, the Macronist camp 19.5% and LR 8%. It also shows that 77% of those questioned say that their choice is final, with just under a quarter still undecided.
Marine Le Pen considers the title of head of the armed forces “honorary”
During the three previous cohabitations of the Fifth Republic, the president had retained broad powers in matters of international policy and defense, in the name of an interpretation of the Constitution granting a “reserved domain” to the head of state.
The left agrees in case of triangulars…
Faced with polls still favourable to the RN, the second round of July 7 is already on everyone’s minds: on Wednesday, the head of the Ecologists, Marine Tondelier, demanded from the leaders of the presidential majority “simple and clear commitments” of mutual withdrawal in the event of three-way contests in order to “defeat the candidates of the National Rally”.
“When a Republican candidate is opposed to a National Rally candidate, we will support the Republican candidate (..) And you?”, she wrote to them, offering them a meeting. “We will do it without any expectation, without any expected compensation,” added the boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, at 8 p.m. on TF1, inviting the Macronists to “return the favor” of the calls for a Macron vote that he had launched to the second rounds of the last two presidential elections.
…While the presidential majority remains in the dark
“There has not yet been a first round, so by definition there is no doctrine,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal indirectly replied to them, on the sidelines of a trip to Parçay-Meslay (Indre-et-Loire). On Tuesday, the head of state and the executives of his majority had seemed to be moving towards a slogan “neither RN nor LFI” during a videoconference, distinguishing Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement from the other parties of the left-wing alliance. However, one participant assured that the president had not “decided”.
François Bayrou, yes: “We will not vote for a candidate from the National Rally, nor for an LFI candidate”, explained the head of the MoDem on France 5. The head of Horizons, Edouard Philippe, for his part reserved his position for the evening and the day after the first round, saying he hoped that a “central space”, including part of the left and the right, would emerge as “an alternative” to the “pincer” between RN and LFI.
The LR president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, warned in Le Parisien that he would “never be able to vote for an RN or New Popular Front candidate”, targeting the entire alliance – including the socialists and not just LFI -, believing that “what they propose and what they represent is the opposite of the country’s interests”.
French volleyball star Earvin Ngapeth “encourages votes against the RN”
Earvin Ngapeth, a star of the French volleyball team, told AFP on Thursday that he “encourages votes against the National Rally” three days before the first round of early legislative elections that are plunging France into a period of great political uncertainty. “I simply encourage votes against the National Rally, which conveys ideas, values, principles that are not mine,” Ngapeth argued.
“The France that I love is a France where everyone mixes, like our team that will compete in the Olympic Games and within which we give joy to the French,” he insisted. The 33-year-old player is the leader of the Blues who will defend at the Paris Games (July 26-August 11) their Olympic title won three years ago in Tokyo. On the occasion of this major event, he wanted to put himself forward as a candidate to be the flag bearer of the French delegation at the opening ceremony.
It is “important to move away from extremes”, says Victor Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyama, the French basketball star, said on Thursday that it was “important to move away from extremes, which are not the direction to take for a country like ours,” in response to a question from the press about the political context in France. As a reminder, The Council of State classified the National Rally as a far-right party, but specifically mentioned that the French Communist Party and La France Insoumise were classified in the “left” shade, and not on the far left.
“Of course, political choices are personal, but for me it is important to move away from extremes, which are not the direction to take for a country like ours,” said the basketball player, speaking about the early legislative elections, when questioned during a press conference for the Blues at Insep in Paris before the Olympic Games.
LFI withdraws its nomination from a candidate for anti-Semitic messages
La France insoumise announced on Thursday that it would withdraw its nomination from a candidate in the legislative elections in Loir-et-Cher for anti-Semitic tweets that he wrote in the past. “The Electoral Committee of France Insoumise was informed today (Thursday) of tweets of an anti-Semitic nature published six years ago by a candidate nominated in the legislative elections”, Reda Belkadi in the first constituency of Loir-et-Cher, writes LFI in a press release.
“After verification, it notes that this candidate has in fact violated the charter of commitment signed by all the candidates invested by France Insoumise through which each undertakes to +reject all sexist, racist remarks, behavior and violence , anti-Semites, LGBTIphobes and all forms of discrimination,” the document continues. “The electoral committee of France Insoumise immediately withdraws its nomination from Mr. Belkadi in the first constituency of Loir-et-Cher and refers the matter to the Committee for Respect for Principles to obtain its immediate exclusion from France Insoumise,” concludes this same source.
Mr. Belkadi was a candidate in particular against the outgoing Modem deputy Marc Fesneau.
Glucksmann calls on the majority to “get out of neither-nor”
MEP Raphaël Glucksmann called on Thursday on the Macronist camp, which is sending the National Rally and the left back to back in the legislative campaign, to “get out of the neither-nor” which is “in reality consent to the seizure of power by the RN”.
“So that there is no extreme right majority, the macronie has one thing to do, and that is to get out of neither-nor”, and to say “very clearly that the priority of priorities is is to prevent the RN from having an absolute majority”, declared to the press Mr. Glucksmann, who came to support the candidate of the left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP), Aurélien Rousseau, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine ( Yvelines).
Mr. Glucksmann denounced an element of electoral calculation in the majority’s rhetoric: “It’s a first-round strategy to try to limit the damage” on Sunday by weakening the left. But this strategy is “extremely dangerous for the future”: “With all this propaganda, there is a fundamental risk which is the inability to block the RN in a few days”, he feared. The President of the Republic “Emmanuel Macron played Nero by deciding to dissolve the National Assembly when nothing obliged him to do so. And now, it is Pontius Pilate who washes his hands of it”, a- he lashed out.
Attal accuses Bardella of supporting “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic” candidates
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, leader of the outgoing majority in the legislative elections, accused his far-right rival Jordan Bardella on Thursday of presenting “around a hundred candidates” who had made “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks”, which the leader of the RN objected en bloc.
“We cannot build appeasement and unity when we present in this election more than a hundred candidates, that is to say almost one in five (…) for whom we found racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks,” said Mr. Attal during a televised debate on France2 with Mr. Bardella and the socialist Olivier Faure, who represented the New Popular Front. Citing by name several candidates invested by the RN, Mr. Attal also mentioned “a young son of a National Rally executive arrested for assault”, and referred to press articles published in particular in Le Monde and Libération.
“Everything is false, completely false,” replied Mr. Bardella, stating that “there were counter-articles to demonstrate that it was false and (that) Libération is being sued for defamation.” The Prime Minister also denounced the RN’s desire to “stigmatize 3.5 million dual-national French people” by prohibiting them from accessing certain jobs deemed “strategic.”
“The message you are sending (to them) is ‘You are more corruptible than others, we do not have enough confidence in you to entrust you with responsibilities'”, Mr. Attal asserted. “Caricature”, replied Mr. Bardella, believing that his adversary “has an interest in playing on fears” and assuring that he did not wish “to call into question dual nationality”.