France/Legislative: “Confidence” of the RN in the face of the “Republican front”, no voting instructions from Attal

PARIS (Reuters) – National Rally (RN) leader Marine Le Pen expressed her “confidence” in the second round of early legislative elections in France on Wednesday evening, as the presidential coalition and the left-wing alliance try to organize a broad “republican front” against the far-right party, which led the first round of voting last Sunday.

Four days before the second round of elections, the question of a possible “grand coalition” against the RN is being debated within the presidential camp Ensemble pour la République and the left-wing alliance of the New Popular Front (NFP).

Dozens of elected officials withdrew from the second round where the far-right party could win, a withdrawal strategy that is part of a broader desire to block the RN.

The far-right party is credited with a total of between 190 and 220 seats in the second round, according to a Toluna Harris Interactive poll for Challenges, M6 and RTL. This would be an insufficient result for the RN to have the absolute majority of 289 seats in the National Assembly, an objective that the party considers necessary to govern.

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“We cannot govern if we do not have an absolute majority,” Marine Le Pen repeated on Wednesday during the 8pm news on TF1. “We are the only ones who can offer a perspective to France,” she added, expressing her optimism about the outcome of the second round of voting.

“I am very confident. The French have a real desire for change,” said the RN leader.

According to the count of several media outlets based on the Interior Ministry’s database, more than 200 withdrawals were recorded, leading to 89 “triangular” and two “quadrangular” votes in the second round of voting.

“EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE”

Faced with the prospect of a National Assembly dominated by the RN, the question of a possible “grand coalition” is animating conversations in the ranks of the NFP and the presidential alliance.

It would be “terrible for the country” if the RN obtained an absolute majority, declared Gabriel Attal on Wednesday evening during a special broadcast on BFM TV in which the national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), Marine Tondelier, and the president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, also took part, in turn.

Regretting, like Marine Tondelier, that these were individual interviews and not a debate, citing Jordan Bardella’s refusal to face his “inconsistencies”, the Matignon resident stressed that the entire political class had to do its “examination of conscience”.

On Sunday evening, he called for “building majorities of projects and ideas between republican forces”, immediately renouncing the implementation of the contested reform of unemployment insurance.

Gabriel Attal, who is leading the campaign for the presidential camp and will answer “questions from the French” on Thursday evening on France 2 alongside Jordan Bardella, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann and the Les Républicains (LR) mayor of Cannes (Alpes Maritimes), David Lisnard, has however refused to give voting instructions.

“REDUCE THE RISK OF AN ABSOLUTE MAJORITY OF THE RN”

Asked who he would call on people to vote for in the second round of the RN and La France Insoumise (LFI), the Prime Minister dodged the question, saying on Wednesday evening that he “did not like” the idea of ​​telling the French people who to vote for.

“We ruled out the risk of an LFI majority in the first round, now we must rule out the risk of an absolute RN majority,” he repeated on BFM TV, protesting that the RN was stirring up fears among voters of an alliance between the presidential camp and LFI – a “trick”, he said, to “hide the daily discoveries about the candidates” of the far-right party, citing racist and anti-Semitic remarks.

Jordan Bardella responded indirectly afterwards, assuring that he was removing the “black sheep”. “Out of 600 candidates, three or four have comments that I condemn; I sanction them and throw them out of my party,” he said.

Gabriel Attal also refused to say whether he would resign after the second round of voting or whether he would remain in office to “take care of current affairs”. “I will answer you on Sunday evening,” he evaded.

The choice of the new tenant of Matignon comes down to three declared candidates, Jordan Bardella summarized on BFM TV, citing the current Prime Minister, the leader of LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and himself. The personalities of the left-wing alliance seek to “hide Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the closet”, added the president of the RN, citing a desire to “mask the violence” of their project.

A few minutes earlier, Marine Tondelier estimated that Jordan Bardella would not “last 24 hours at Matignon”, criticizing him for the many conditions imposed. “He wants a red carpet”, she declared, dismissing the hypothesis that Jean-Luc Mélenchon would access Matignon or that a Macronist would be installed there again, due to the lack of a parliamentary majority.

“The priority is to beat Jordan Bardella, and for the rest (…) we will find a personality (…) who will achieve consensus,” she continued, expressing her lack of appetite for the “premature, indecent parade of self-candidates.”

“DOING THINGS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN DONE”

On Wednesday morning, Gabriel Attal rejected the idea of ​​any “coalition” on France Inter. “I did not talk about a coalition. I am not going to impose on the French a coalition that they have not chosen,” he said. “At the end of this second round, either power will be in the hands of a far-right government, or power will be in Parliament. I am fighting for this second scenario.”

The idea of ​​a “grand coalition” against the RN was defended by the outgoing president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet. “I am arguing for us to form a grand coalition, this could go as far as the left bloc, with the environmentalists, the socialists and the communists, people with whom I share values,” she said on RTL.

The presidential camp, however, has set a red line: no alliance with LFI, Emmanuel Macron declared in the council of ministers, a participant reported to Reuters.

Edouard Philippe, mayor of Le Havre and leader of Horizons, said on TF1 that he was open “to a new parliamentary majority that could go from the conservative right to the social democrats”. “It is obvious that he cannot have a discussion on a coalition with LFI”, he added.

In the NFP camp, the proposal for a rapprochement in the National Assembly with the presidential camp was received with mixed reactions.

“We will surely have to do things that no one has ever done before in this country,” Marine Tondelier acknowledged on TF1 on Tuesday evening, adding that “some in the centre, on the right, are telling us how they want to work in the other direction.”

Green MP Sandrine Rousseau, re-elected in Paris in the first round of the legislative elections, fiercely opposed the proposal. “To deviate and still move towards a liberal policy, which does not respect what we have set out in the political debate, is in a certain way to betray the voice of the voters,” she said on France 2.

(Written by Kate Entringer, Blandine Hénault and Jean Terzian)