Campaign posters for the second round of legislative elections, July 2, 2024 in Libourne, Gironde (AFP/Philippe LOPEZ)
After the end of the saga of withdrawals, the New Popular Front and the outgoing majority are trying to convince their voters to apply the “republican front” in the ballot boxes on Sunday to prevent an absolute RN majority and then consider a coalition which is still far from achieving consensus.
By the time applications closed on Tuesday, the left had withdrawn more than 130 candidates and the presidential camp more than 80 in constituencies where the RN has a serious chance of winning.
This approach has caused the number of three-way races to fall: around a hundred, compared to 311 possible at the polls last Sunday.
The proportion of voters following these withdrawal instructions, which is decreasing with each election, will therefore be the key element in the second round.
“It obviously doesn’t please many French people to have to block the National Rally by using another ballot that they wouldn’t have wanted (…) I consider that it is our responsibility to do so,” argued Gabriel Attal on France Inter. “There is a bloc in a position to have an absolute majority in the National Assembly, it is the extreme right. Neither LFI, nor the New Popular Front, nor our candidates are able to form an absolute majority alone.”
Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe indicated that he would vote “for a communist candidate”. “I prefer an elected official with whom I work in the interest of Le Havre, even with differences, and who seems to me to be part of a democratic requirement that I share”, he explained.
Marine Le Pen arrives at the headquarters of the National Rally (RN), July 2, 2024 in Paris (AFP/Dimitar DILKOFF)
“Edouard Philippe calls for a communist vote. Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls for a vote for Gérald Darmanin (…) The political class is giving an increasingly grotesque image of itself,” mocked Marine Le Pen. And Jordan Bardella denounced a “Macron-Mélenchon coalition to paralyze the country.”
Marine Le Pen mentioned a threshold of some 270 deputies, supplemented with support from “various right, various left, LR” for Jordan Bardella to accept Matignon.
– A coalition still far away –
If, on the contrary, the RN could not govern, the Macronists, a part of the left without LFI and certain LR could try to form a “grand coalition”, common in European countries but foreign to French traditions.
Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally (RN), leaves the party headquarters on July 2, 2024 in Paris (AFP/Dimitar DILKOFF)
This scenario is still far from being unanimous, especially since the absence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement would prevent having an absolute majority.
Emmanuel Macron hammered home on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers that there was “no question” of “governing” with La France Insoumise. “Withdrawing today for elected officials from the left in the face of the National Rally does not mean governing tomorrow with LFI,” he declared.
A position shared by… the Insoumis who only intend to govern to implement their program. “I don’t really see how those who came in 3rd place think they’re going to be able to put together a coalition. I doubt that the majority wants to implement our program,” stressed MP Eric Coquerel.
While the head of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier has not closed the door to this scenario, she has ruled out a new “Macronist Prime Minister”. And MP Sandrine Rousseau believes that such a coalition would be a “betrayal” of the voters.
“This will require consultations and work the day after the vote,” stressed former President François Hollande, for whom “everything that is proposed before a vote is a form of combination.”
In any case, the possible partners of a possible coalition seem to agree that discussions after the election should take place in Parliament and not in the Elysée.
“Either power will be in the hands of a far-right government, or power will be in Parliament,” Gabriel Attal summed up.
– the RN refuses televised debates –
On Wednesday evening, Gabriel Attal, Jordan Bardella and Marine Tondelier will speak in turn on BFMTV, which had to acknowledge “the impossibility of holding a debate”, the RN asking in vain that the New Popular Front be represented by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the Ecologists, June 30, 2024 in Hénin-Beaumont, in Pas-de-Calais (AFP/Sameer Al-Doumy)
“In reality, Bardella is afraid of Tondelier, who lives and campaigns in Hénin-Beaumont and knows the RN’s methods only too well,” the environmentalists denounced.
According to the local radio network France Bleu, more than twenty RN candidates have also cancelled their participation in the traditional debates between the two rounds in the constituency.
Every day brings its revelations about the controversial profiles of several of them.
After the candidate with the Nazi cap was disinvested in Calvados or the candidate under guardianship in Jura, the courts were called upon for comments deemed “racist” by the outgoing deputy of Yonne, Daniel Grenon, according to whom Maghrebis “have no place in high places”.
“When there are black sheep – and there may be some – I don’t have a trembling hand,” Jordan Bardella assured in return.
In the morning, Emmanuel Macron convened the Council of Ministers, which made “less than ten appointments,” according to government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot. Far from the “administrative coup d’état” that the presidential camp was preparing, according to Marine Le Pen.
According to one participant, the president also urged people to “absolutely not” listen to “the polls which say that the RN cannot have an absolute majority. We must remain mobilized, nothing is decided.”
© 2024 AFP
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