If the polls are right again, in this second round of the legislative elections in France, Marine Le Pen will not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the French Parliament, because, as revealed by Ipsos, number one among the polling research institutes beyond the Alps, the "barrage", the "dam" against the far right has worked.
Or, better said, it "would" have worked: because until the true results are known, we need to be "prudent, distrustful and vigilant", as the French say.
Elections in France: will Macron's appeal be useful yes or no?
One thing is certain, the call for desistance, from Macron and the leaders of the New popular front has been listened to: now the face-to-face challenges between Lepenist and frontist candidates have risen from 190 to 403 because 126 frontist candidates have withdrawn to give more chance to those of Macron; and 81 Macronists made the same choice to leave room for the frontists. Will it help?
We must not forget that we are talking about democratic rules which, however, as more than one commentator in French newspapers points out, may not be understood by those who chose Le Pen's party in the first round, rewarding him with 33,1%, out of social hatred, intending to undermine the democratic table in a sort of epochal revenge against "those at the top", "the know-it-alls", the "respectable", feelings that have not died down this week and which could revive again moreover.
In truth, prudence is seriously a must, just remember how the last legislative elections went, those of 2022: two days before the opening of the polls the polls had assigned 40 seats to the Lepenists, but then they took 89. Not to mention the fact that the New Front appears really nebulous given that they have said clearly that they are an electoral cartel and that they will disband the day after the vote. So?
Elections, that's why something has moved on the left too
And then prudence must not prevent us from seeing that if something has moved to the right, with the powerful advance of the Lepenists, something happened on the left too, where for a long time we had not seen unity (necessary it is true, but still unity), like the one that forced Macronists, Mélenchonists, socialists, greens and communists to stay together. Who knows, maybe those forces are, despite themselves, forced to stay together again: it wouldn't be the first time nor the last time that electoral unions transform into government, Italia docet.
However, it is clear that France, unless there was a paradoxical error on the part of the pollsters, who would not have seen the total victory of the Lepenists, is about to go through a period of political instability never known in recent years; and all the patience, tenacity and competence of the most prepared leaders will be needed to unravel the problem. This is to say that it will be difficult to find a government majority because, on the right, as the head of Ipsos, Brice Teinturier, claims, it will be "almost impossible", since "Gaullist deputies who have been elected by beating a Lepenist, will not then be able to form an alliance in Parliament with the same party." While on the left the proposals are numerous.
Elections in France, possible scenarios after the second round
The hypotheses, as reported in the newspapers, range from a "plural majority", invoked by the current prime minister, Gabriel Attal, to the development of a "grand coalition", imagined by the president of the current National Assembly, Yael Braun-Pivet, to arrive at the suggestion of a minimum agreement lasting one year suggested by the former president Francois Hollande, before being able to go to the polls again.
In none of these cases is there a choice of Jean-Luc Mélenchon as prime minister, not surprisingly invested in the position by his opponents (as well as by himself) because it is the name that most divides and makes the path that leads to the government of the anti-Le Pen "dam" slippery, accused as he is by his companions journey of being a populist clone of Marine as far as basic values are concerned: he too is anti-European, anti-NATO, anti-Semitic. And in fact many Macronists had to hold their noses in order to discard their own champions and choose Mélenchon's if they had a better chance of beating the Lepenist candidate.
Elections in France and plural majority: who is in charge?
However, if by some miracle we arrived at this "plural majority", who could lead it? Excluding Mélenchon, and also excluding a Macronist, given the debacle of the movement, the name that circulates the most in Paris is that of Rafael Gluksmann, (son of the philosopher André) who obtained an important result in the European elections (14%) leading the list of his movement, Place publique, together with the PS. Other possible names are another socialist, Boris Vallaud, the ecologist Marine Tondelier, also a great revelation of the Europeans, and Lawrence Berger, the former leader of the CFDT union.
This is if you were to fish on the left; if a personality in the anti-Le Pen centre-right area is chosen, Edouard Philippe he is the one who would like the "grand coalition" very much, even if he has the original sin of having already been Macron's prime minister and that his movement, Horizons, did not have the success he hoped for in the European elections.
Elections in France, Hollande's hypothesis for cohabitation
And then the most suggestive hypothesis of all appears in the press, although not very realistic: that of former president Hollande who, if he passes the test of the challenge (three-way this time) in his constituency, Corrèze, in the New Aquitaine region, could be the man of cohabitation with Macron, who was, as you will remember, a leading minister at the time of his presidency, before leaving him and founding his movement once he understood that the era of the socialists was over. They say that Hollande has not forgotten the "betrayal" and perhaps for this reason it is considered unrealistic that the two could govern together again.
Elections in France, change of strategy to the right
Meanwhile in the Lepenist camp, after the test of strength of their opponents demonstrated by the desistence, they changed their strategy. Self Bardella he had said immediately after the first round that he would only agree to be prime minister if he had obtained a majority of seats, Marine has corrected his position and now claims that even a relative majority would be enough to appoint his protégé as prime minister. In fact, the leader of RN hopes to find the twenty missing seats in the chamber by searching among the Gaullist dissidents who followed the president Eric Ciotti in the split; or simply among those who want to get on the bandwagon in exchange for some task, because we know, the whole world is a country.
In the meantime, the leader had to do some cleaning among the most nostalgic of the nostalgic of the years of the terrible dictatorships, which, if in Italy it means for some madmen wanting to honor Mussolini's fascism (Prime Minister Meloni knows something about this after the investigation of the colleagues of Fanpage on the young people of his party with their hand raised and anti-Semitism in their hearts), in France the intention is to directly revive the Nazi horror, as the candidate Ludvine Daoudi wanted to do, forced to withdraw after a photo of her, with a hat with Swastika used by the Luftwaffe has made the rounds on the internet.
Macron, what's in his future
This is the picture. The polls will define it clearly and significantly as early as 20pm on Sunday 7 July and France will have a clear view of its next path. At this point it is also legitimate to ask what will be the future of Macron, whose resignation is being called for by the most agitated on the left. The bet (the gamble) that pushed him to dissolve the Assembly prematurely with the aim of wearing down the far right, not only exploded its potential, but led to the decimation of his movement: of the 250 according to the polls, he would have between 95 and 125 deputies left.
In a few hours it will be understood whether the president has seen the long way, like a skilled chess player who sacrifices even the queen if he sees victory, since with the early vote he would have obtained, with the isolation of the far right, also the unity of the republican front; or, by letting himself be caught up in the poker player's fury of gambling, he will have handed the country over to the crypto-Nazis and chaos. It goes without saying that we sincerely hope for the first hypothesis, not only for the French, but for all Europeans.
