Legislative elections in France | Emmanuel Macron on track to preserve his majority in the National Assembly

(Paris) The united left (25% to 26.2%) and the camp of President Macron (25% to 25.8%) arrive neck and neck in the first round of the legislative elections on Sunday, against a background of abstention record (52.1% to 52.8%), thus opening the game of the second round in a week.

The first projections of the 577 seats give an advantage to the outgoing majority united under the label Ensemble!, with a range of 260 to 300 seats, ahead of the left (LFI, PCF, PS and EELV) united under the Nupes banner (150 to 208), according to the Harris Institute, and a range of 275 to 310 for Together! and 190 to 210 for Nupes, according to Ifop-Fiducial.

But they do not settle two major questions: will the head of state manage to retain his absolute majority in the National Assembly? And will the left find sufficient reserves of votes to send, as it hopes, the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Matignon?

As expected, the candidates of the National Rally (18.5% to 19.8%) failed to capitalize on the momentum of Marine Le Pen in the presidential election, who had garnered more than 40% of the votes in the second round. Confined to eight elected in 2017, the contingent of RN deputies should however be much larger this time, and still count in its ranks M^me Le Pen, given largely in the lead in his constituency of Pas-de-Calais (around 55%).

Conversely, in the wake of the heavy fall of its presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse, LR (11.6% to 14%) should lose its place as the leading opposition group in the National Assembly.

Record abstention

The key to the second round will once again lie in the participation, historically low this Sunday for a first round of legislative elections, between 47 and 47.5% according to the institutes, and affecting young people and the working classes in priority.

Since 1993, disinterest in these elections has steadily increased, a trend that accelerated with the establishment of the five-year term and the alignment of the presidential and legislative elections in 2002. Consequence: as in 2017 (48, 7% participation), a majority of French people of voting age decided to shun the ballot box.

However, the various parties involved have continued to send calls for mobilization and have heavily insisted on the issues, six weeks after seeing Emmanuel Macron obtain a second term at the Élysée.

For the Head of State, who called on the French to give him “a strong and clear majority”, it is a question of being able to have the many reforms promised in his program approved, starting with that of pensions. which is due to come into effect in one year.

The executive has also insisted in recent weeks on its intention to vote in July on a set of measures for purchasing power, in order to counter inflation which is straining household budgets and weighing on business accounts.

As expected, the score of the Macronist candidates is in decline compared to the wave of 2017, when La République en Marche and Modem won more than 32% in the first round before obtaining nearly 350 deputies in the second. It remains to be seen whether this decline will result in a loss of the absolute majority (289 deputies) and therefore the obligation to deal with other groups to have the texts of the executive adopted.

Favorite Elisabeth Borne

“Throughout the campaign, we felt that people were going to decide in the last, even the last day”, estimated at the end of the week a minister himself a candidate and according to whom, beyond the result of Sunday evening, the composition of the future Assembly remains “particularly open”.

The interval between the two rounds, which must in particular be marked by an acceleration of the campaign on the part of the executive in general and Emmanuel Macron in particular, seems particularly crucial, even if according to several specialists, the macronie is the one who suffered the least from Sunday’s very high abstention.

Several personalities also play big, in particular their ministerial post, which they would lose in the event of failure to be elected next Sunday.

The outgoing majority breathed a sigh of relief when they discovered the score of the head of government, Elisabeth Borne, who came first in the sixth constituency of Calvados and is now a big favorite.

But the fate of ministers Clément Beaune or Stanislas Guerini in Paris, or Justine Benin in Guadeloupe, is still particularly uncertain.

The result of Sunday evening thus appeared as a trompe l’oeil for several leaders of the majority: on the one hand, Emmanuel Macron is on the way to succeeding in his bet to renew a majority in the Assembly, which had not happened for fifteen years.

But the hope that La République en Marche will alone obtain an absolute majority has become illusory, the marchers having to rely on the troops of the Modem and especially those of Edouard Philippe to hope to reach 289 seats.

The deputies will also have to face a powerful left-wing group, unlike the last legislature.

Worse: the risk that their majority is only relative greatly complicates the task of macronie.

The only example in the history of the Fifth Republic: the legislative elections of 1988, when the Socialists and their allies failed to obtain an absolute majority. At the time, a month and a half after the re-election of François Mitterrand, the then presidential majority had also come in second in the first round.

The government of Michel Rocard then had to make alliances with the center right to have its texts voted on, often with the help of article 49.3 of the Constitution.

Revenge of the left

On the Nupes side, there is little hope of imposing a government of cohabitation on Mr. Macron, as the plural left had succeeded in 1997 with Lionel Jospin. While Mr. Mélenchon had urged the French to make these elections a “third round” of the presidential election, the left should still establish itself as the main opposition bloc at the Palais-Bourbon.

A form of tactical half-victory when on the other side of the hemicycle, the Republicans will count their survivors among the hundred outgoing, hoping to make the most of their local roots.

Among the hotspots monitored on Sunday evening are the results in the 4^e district of Var where the far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour competes, who thus intends to complete his landing in politics after the presidential election.

The baptism of fire of the former Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, who is trying his luck for the first time in the Loiret, or even the duel on the left in the 15^e constituency of Paris are also scrutinized.