The response is only that of the pollsters, but in France they seem to believe it before even going to the polls. A few hours before the vote everyone takes it for granted that the next prime minister will decide it Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National party, the former Front National founded by his father. Because even the latest survey, carried out by the Elabe center for Bfm TV, indicates that the winner of these early elections will be Jordan Bardella, secretary of the Rn, with 36%. In second place, with 27,5%, comes the New Popular Front, all shades of the left unusually united; while with 20% "Together for the Republic", the political area of Emmanuel Macron, led by the Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. And as if it were the "true" result, the editorialists have already started the analyses.
Elections in France, what are the possible scenarios
Before any other reflection, given the inexorable march of the RN, it is noted that the Lepenists have pulverized the so-called "glass ceiling", a term that until now had only been used for the growth of women's power. There is no doubt – notes the socialist Laurent Joffrin in its daily editorial on Lejournal.info, of which he is director - France is experiencing "a kind of liberation of anti-elite, anti-globalisation, anti-immigrant, anti-Europe sentiments, without any moral scruple coming to stop this drift". In short, he concludes melancholy, “the republican house is burning”.
Yet nothing has happened yet and in any case the French seem to forget that, whatever happens at the polls on June 30 and July 7, there are clear and democratic rules that dictate France's next political season.
Elections in France, cohabitation if Le Pen's party wins
For example, if the "real" votes corresponded to the polls, that is, if they were serious Le Pen's party would become the leading French political force, a new experience of “cohabitation”, that way of governing that is practiced when the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister belong to opposing sides, an eventuality quite characteristic of semi-presidential systems such as the French one. On the other hand, the term “cohabitation” was coined by a French politician, the end Eduard Balladur, in 1983. It wouldn't be the first time to happen, actually, to be precise, it would be the fourth.
The first cohabitation was inaugurated by the socialist president François Mitterrand with the Gaullist prime minister Jacques Chirac (1986/1988); the second again with Mitterrand as president and Balladur as prime minister (1993/1997); and finally the third occurred with Chirac, who in the meantime had become president, with the socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin (1997/2002). Of course, cohabitation with a far-right politician has never occurred.
But here too, thanks to second round, foreseen by the French electoral system, if we wanted to stop the race of the far right it would be enough for the loser to ask his voters to vote for his opponents (or non-friends) in the first round to to block, “to create a dam” against the far right.
Elections in France, what the polls say
Why then the "last days of Pompeii" climate?
Because the fear is that it won't go that way. According to the same polling institute, 53% of potential voters of the New Popular Front he stated that he will not track the delivery. An even higher rate, 70%, is found in the president's camp. And so the barrage? Farewell, There will not be. Gone are the days when all French people, Gaullists, liberals and socialists, voted together in the presidential elections for the moderate candidate Chirac to block the path of senior Le Pen, who even reached the run-off.
If you read the analyzes and the news, hatred, recriminations and political hatred could get the better of you. On the left during the European campaign, insults and terrible offenses were flown, especially by the menchonists against the socialist Gluksmann. While President Macron took them left and right, even winning the award for the most hated politician in France.
Elections in France, because Bardella is not scary
Can we ignore all this? You could if you wanted. And if you don't want it, it's because something else is broken. It seems that it is precisely the "republican" narrative that no longer works. Because it will also be true that every day in Paris there are demonstrations against the far right, but it is equally true that Marine's protégé, the Frenchman of Italian origins BardellaIt's not scary at all, on the contrary it is also appreciated by those who vote elsewhere for his calm manner and good manners. So much so that, according to the same survey, one Frenchman in five believes that the Lepenist program would lead to civil war, and there are just as many who think the same thing about the melancholic extreme left of "France Insoumise".
That is, they are both scary, Le Pen no longer has the monopoly of the fairy tale witch. Which brings attention to the choice of the moderate right and the Macronists to call for "ni-ni", that is, not to vote "neither to the right nor to the left", because nationalists and socialists are "equal", Le Pen and Melenchon equally authoritarian, anti-Semitic, pro-Russian and anti-European. An assimilation that horrifies the socialists who find it "frankly slanderous", repeating for the umpteenth time that the New Popular Front is not a copy of the National Front, that they are radically opposed, belonging to two intellectually incompatible camps and that reveal two enemy philosophies. In short, the "New Popular Front is a cartel, a temporary alliance, an electoral expedient intended to prevent the decimation of left-wing deputies in the Assembly".
But if they need to say it again and again it must be because the choice to go together with Melenchon was not convincing. Just as Macron feels the need to explain every time he speaks in public why he decided to dissolve the Assembly, risking giving the government of the country to the far right. Put to the test – the president claims – the right should prove to be a failure and consequently would see its appeal among voters diminish.
A gamble, which now all that remains is to go and verify. In conclusion, and however you look at it, the French situation is completely open and high risk. The financial markets, immediately concerned by the performance of the far right at the European elections, are on alert.
As he pointed out Roberto Gusmerini, Head of Dealing at Ebury Italia, the uncertainty has already caused a widening of the spread between French and German securities while the main French stock index, the Cac 40, has also fallen significantly.
Elections in France, international fears and the war in Ukraine
But the strongest concerns obviously concern politics, also understood as international positioning. Marine Le Pen, after a fragile conversion on Russian responsibilities of war in Ukraine, she returned to declare her true "love", that for Putin. She did so by attacking President Macron's role as "head of the armed forces" which in her opinion is only an "honorary title" while "it is the prime minister who holds the purse strings". She immediately explained where she wanted to go: "The president will not be able to send troops to Ukraine." Aside from the debate that ensued over articles of the Constitution, it is clear that the leader essentially wanted to send two messages. THEthe first to Russia, which translates into a simple: don't worry, now we'll come and change everything, no aid to Kiev, enough with the sanctions, Moscow will close the "special operation" as it wants and we'll return to peace. The second message is addressed to the incumbent president and the French: let no one be under any illusions, if cohabitation is to be, it will certainly not be like the "velvet" one between Mitterrand and Balladur, the battle will be meter by meter to undermine the republican and democratic fort.
What should Europe fear?
And Europe? Should he fear? With or without good clothes, the dream of Lepenists and right-wingers is always the same: to return to the nations. Now they are aiming for disarticulation from within, as dictated by the new strategy of the sovereignists. On the other hand, the "comrades" have grown almost everywhere and a part of the United States is just waiting to free itself of some ballast, NATO and Europe first and foremost. With a little patience and the right president this too will be done. Then it will all be downhill. Unless they get implanted barrage.
