Avoid Le Pen now, Mélenchon tomorrow: France's double challenge
At the ballot there will be an attempt to block the illiberal democracy of Rn, but afterwards there will be an attempt to isolate the illiberal democracy of France Insoumise
3' min read
3' min read
from our correspondent in Paris
Two blocks confront each other on 7 July. Three blocks, partially different, from the following day. France's challenge is twofold in these legislative elections. Today, at the ballot, the Rassemblement national (Rn), with its programme that in fact challenges the French and European institutions, aims to win an absolute majority, or at least a solid relative majority that can be reinforced with some alliance. On the opposite front, all the other parties, united by a raillement - a rally, but also a battle - to avoid too radical a government.
Tomorrow, France may already present itself differently: the illiberal democracy camp of Rn, forced to live with and adapt to a constitutional system that is in any case liberal-democratic, will be opposed by a radical democracy party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise (Lfi), which has already announced that it wants to stay out of any hypothesis of a broad coalition government so as not to water down its programme, and the vast 'republican' camp, animated by many mutual reservations, of liberal democracy, ranging from the socialists and ecologists to the Républicains, passing through the Macronists.
A vote still open
.The first step, the vote, is still open. The alliances have been concluded, but it is not certain that the voting indications will be respected, that left-wing voters will actually vote for, for example, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who is too 'police-like', or former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who pushed through the pension reform; and on the contrary, it might be difficult for a Macronian to vote for some left-wing candidates. The campaign is brawling, there has been no shortage of serious violence - a Macronian militant had her jaw broken - and 30,000 gendarmes are now active in Paris. Even within families there is a bitter argument about voting.
Rn believes it can still achieve an absolute majority, and so does the Nouveau front populaire (Nfp), the union of all the lefts, including the Lfi; and it is difficult to see how much of this is campaigning and how much a clear and obvious indication of their potential. The polls on seats, statistically very unrobust, do not give anyone an absolute majority of at least 289 seats. The trend - which downplays the extreme figures - of the surveys carried out after the first round now entrusts between 191 and 220 seats to Rn, between 167 and 187 to Nfp, between 106 and 130 to the presidential alliance Ensemble - and this would be an exploit, given the starting conditions - and between 28 and 48 seats to the Républicains and their allies.
