Just over a week away from the first round of legislative elections in France, Emmanuel Macron’s party and its centrist allies are closely followed by a left-wing coalition on the rise.
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In a largely sluggish campaign, which hardly mobilizes the French according to the polls, this coalition of left-wing parties led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon is fighting a bitter duel in the hope of becoming the first opposition force in the country.
Recent polls show a decline in the “Together!” of President Macron, who would certainly come first in the legislative elections of June 12 and 19, but without being certain of winning an absolute majority in the next Assembly, as now.
It would obtain, according to an Ifop-Fiducial survey, between 275 and 310 seats, against 170 to 205 for the Nupes, this electoral alliance bringing together the socialists, communists, ecologists and the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France insubordinate. The absolute majority is 289 deputies.
“We are well placed to win,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Franceinfo radio on Friday, he who is trying to transform the ballot into a “third round” of the presidential election.
At 70, Mr. Mélenchon, whom some call the “Gallic Chavez” in reference to the former strongman of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, came third in the presidential election on April 24 at the head of the radical left in France.
On the side of the presidential majority, we assure you to “take seriously” this rise in power of the Nupes, indicated Thursday the deputy Aurore Bergé.
The Minister for Relations with Parliament, Olivier Véran, assured him that if the parliament was not “in accordance with the program for which the president was elected, it would be a major destabilization of politics in our country for the years to come. come”.
However, according to a BVA poll released on Friday, only a third of French people (35%) want Emmanuel Macron to have a majority in the National Assembly.
“Head Elsewhere”
A month and a half after his comfortable re-election on April 24 against his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron does not benefit from any state of grace and remains far from his image of president in a hurry and the usual momentum of a majority in the campaign.
Despite trips to Brussels at the start of the week for a European summit, then to western France on Tuesday and to the south on Thursday in Marseille, the French president is accused by the opposition of procrastinating, even of “inertia” .
And this despite the growing concern of the French expressed in all the opinion polls, linked to the slowdown in the French economy and the soaring food and energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine.
As for his new government, formed a few weeks ago under the leadership of Elisabeth Borne, his hands are tied by the electoral calendar and is weakened by controversy.
First there was the case of the Minister of Solidarity, Damien Abad, accused of rape, which he refuted.
Then, the fiasco at the entrance to the Stade de France last Saturday on the sidelines of the final of the Champions League football. This failure took a very political turn, with the opposition calling for the resignation of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. Heard on Wednesday in the Senate, he finally had to apologize.
The French government appears all the more feverish as several of its members, including the Prime Minister, are candidates for the legislative elections.
The French are called upon to renew the 577 deputies of the National Assembly.
But the electoral campaign is struggling to take off, with the exception of certain local contests in the south of France in particular, where the far right is torn apart. As in Saint-Tropez, an emblematic seaside resort, where Marine Le Pen’s former presidential rival, Éric Zemmour, is a candidate.
The French “very clearly have their heads elsewhere”, estimated polling expert Brice Teinturier on Thursday, while “in reality there is not really a campaign that has been built”.
French people living abroad and in French Polynesia are voting for their part this weekend, some having already been able to do so online until June 1 despite a few hiccups.
This climate raises fears of a very high rate of abstention. During the last legislative elections, in 2017, it had exceeded 50% in the first round, a record.
