France began this Monday its uncertain campaign for the legislative elections brought forward by the president Emmanuel Macron with the aim of stopping an extreme right in a position of strength and that is announced as a disaster for their centrist alliance.
Macron surprised with this electoral advance just one hour after the closing of the polling stations on June 9 of the elections to the European Parliament, in which the far-right National Rally (RN) obtained 31.37% of votes in France.
RN has 33% of voting intention, followed by the left coalition New Popular Front (28%) and the centrist alliance of Macron (18%) in the legislative elections of June 30 and July 7, according to an Ifop survey published this Monday.
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The polls show an uncertain scenario, with a rebalancing of the three blocs that emerged from the 2022 elections, which could lead to the president, whose term ends in 2027, having to share power with a government of a different political color.
Faced with the prospect of a RN government, tens of thousands of people demonstrated over the weekend and more than 200 athletes called in the newspaper L’Equipe to vote against an extreme right that “manipulates” the fears for “split”.
“Extremisms are at the doors of power, we have the opportunity to decide the future of our country,” said footballer Kylian Mbappé, in a call to young people to vote, celebrated by the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.
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The Ministry of the Interior indicated that it issued some 410,000 powers so that those who cannot go to vote give their vote to someone of their choice, six and a half times more than during the same period of the 2022 legislative elections. The second round coincides with the start of the summer school holidays.
With victory within reach, RN seeks to reassure voters. “You do not have to be afraid. “Our party is like any other (…) People should not believe that everything is going to fall apart.”said its vice president, Sébastien Chenu.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is making efforts to moderate the image of the party inherited from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his racist and anti-Semitic comments, including purchasing power among her favorite topics such as insecurity or immigration.
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His deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy announced that his party would repeal in the next “autumn” boreal the unpopular pension reform of Macron, despite the fact that the far-right candidate for prime minister, Jordan Bardella, recently considered it as not “priority”.
Looking ahead to the legislative elections, RN also obtained the support of the president of Los Republicanos (LR), Éric Ciotti, whose proposal for “alliance” He divided his former ruling formation with Charles de Gaulle, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The fear of a far-right government forced the left-wing opposition to overcome its differences and once again present itself united in the New Popular Front, which brings together social democrats like former president François Hollande to anti-capitalists.
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But its main challenge is to overcome the open crisis with the decision of La Francia Insumisa (LFI, radical left) to remove five outgoing deputies critical of their leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and to reinstate a close friend convicted of marital violence.
The latter, Adrien Quatennens, ended up resigning, while four of the five sections decided to maintain their candidacies against the new LFI candidates and received the support of socialist, communist and environmental allies.
Macron’s alliance seeks to position itself as the alternative against the “extremes” -in reference to RN and LFI– which, according to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, would represent a risk of “catastrophe for the economy and employment.”
To avoid an electoral disaster, the ruling alliance “Together for the Republic” presented candidates in 489 of the 577 French single-member constituencies and reached specific non-aggression pacts with anti-Ciotti LR candidates.
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These pacts increase the uncertainty of the result two weeks before the first round of these elections, which will also feature dissident candidacies on the left and 62 candidates “sets” of RN with the LR of Ciotti.
