In the second round of parliamentary elections, the president threatens to lose his solid majority to the left. That’s why your group hesitates over who to support in duels between the radical left and right.
Paris. It’s a fight for every vote: just five candidates won their seats in the first round of French parliamentary elections on June 12. Four of them belong to the leftist Nupes alliance, which is still hoping to steal a majority from President Emmanuel Macron in the second vote. In almost all constituencies there will be duels next Sunday.
This is a consequence of an electoral system that does not allocate seats according to the percentage results of the lists. In some cases, Nupes’ third-place finishers voluntarily withdrew so that the far right would not win the race.
Right, left or nothing?
Macron’s centrist Allianz Ensemble faces a dilemma when representatives of Nupes face off against Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN). What should be the recommendation? For macronists, who place themselves politically in the middle, the answer is complicated: they should generally or only case-by-case support their main rivals, the alliance of left-wing populists, socialists, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s communists and greens, when they oppose far right compete? Or should macronists declare themselves neutral and leave the choice to the citizens or even recommend throwing an empty ballot into the ballot box?
As the left is clearly the main opponent in these presidential elections, which has real concerns about its parliamentary majority, it is even more difficult for its alliance to give preference to the Nupes, who come to power, or to consider them as less dangerous, they declare as Marine Le Pen and her RN candidates.
“In the Highest Interest of the Nation”
His dramatic appeal ahead of a visit to Romania and Moldova this week shows just how worried the president is. Before leaving, he asked his countrymen to give him a “clear and solid majority” on Sunday “in the greater interest of the nation”. He needs that majority to implement his reforms, continue his foreign policy and assert France’s influence in the world.
At a Nupes election rally in Toulouse, its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is not running for a seat, scoffed at the president: whether Macron made such a “sketch on the runway” every time he got off the plane, he asked sarcastically.
But the left-wing populist who dreams of becoming prime minister doesn’t have a clear line either. In the 108 constituencies where Nupes was eliminated, the electoral union’s motto is simply: “Don’t vote for the far right.” third. In seven cases, however, Nupes explicitly recommends helping candidates from the previous government’s majority to win.
Middle-class conservatives, for their part, have no problem supporting candidates against Nupes or Rassemblement Macrons. They don’t want to choose between “extremists” on either side. Since the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, they have said “ni – ni” (“neither – nor”) to a choice between right and left. Because your opponents’ opponents are far from your friends.
France has long had the “Republican Front” unspoken rule of blocking an election of candidates from the Le Pen Party. This was to prevent politicians from a racist right from gaining the legitimacy of parliamentary representation.
Left parties have consistently respected this demarcation rule. After some back and forth, the Macron government now wants to keep this tradition and ask its voters not to vote for people from RN under any circumstances. But it is also out of the question to give preference to Nupes candidates if they “do not respect the values of the republic, insult the police, do not support Ukraine or want to leave Europe”. At least, that’s how Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne tried to draw a line. If you are not satisfied with that, you have to decide for yourself.
(“Die Presse”, print edition, June 18, 2022)