Europe 1 with AFP
modified to
9:21 p.m., June 12, 2022
Jean-Luc Mélenchon reacted on Sunday to the results of the first round of the legislative elections. While Nupes came out on top (26.1%), neck and neck with Ensemble! (25.4%), the leader of rebellious France estimated that “the presidential party is beaten and defeated”.
“The presidential party is defeated,” said Sunday Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Insoumise and the union of the left (Nupes), calling on his troops to “surge” in the second round of legislative elections. “The Nupes comes first, it will be present in more than 500 constituencies in the second round”, and “for the first time in the Fifth Republic a newly elected president fails to gather a majority in the legislative election which follows”, he added alongside other leaders of the union of the left gathered in Paris.
“For the first time in the Fifth Republic, a newly elected president is unable to gather a majority in the legislative election that follows,” welcomed the Insoumis leader. “I call on our people, in view of these results and the extraordinary opportunity it presents for our personal lives and for the destiny of the common homeland, to come out on Sunday next Sunday to definitively reject the disastrous plans of the majority of Mr. Macron”, he launched, citing in particular the retirement at 65 years old.
A “common banner which has brought the electorates together”
He said his “emotion in view of the result which is announced to us”, but warned that “the projections in seat at this hour make almost no sense”. “It is this common banner that has brought together the electorates”, commented after him Julien Bayou, the boss of the environmentalist party EELV, member of the left alliance. “I have the feeling that we have overturned the table, the left was supposed to be dead, we have thwarted all the predictions and we come first in this first round”, rejoiced for her part the deputy LFI Clémentine Autain on TF1.
According to the first estimates, the united left (25% to 26.2%) arrived in the first round of the legislative elections on Sunday, neck and neck with the camp of President Macron (25% to 25.8%), which is not guaranteed to retain an absolute majority in the National Assembly, against a backdrop of record abstention.