Legislative elections in France | The campaign starts under high tension

(Paris) The lightning campaign for the first round of the legislative elections on June 30 officially began on Monday in France, under high tension after the series of betrayals and alliances on the right and the left, with the extreme right in a position of strength.

A week after the surprise dissolution of the National Assembly by President Emmanuel Macron, the blocs are in place. And for Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, the situation is clear: “there are three choices”.

On the left, “the alliance led by France Insoumise (Editor’s note: LFI, radical left)”, on the right “the alliance led by the National Rally (Editor’s note: RN, far right)”, in the middle the “third bloc” whose campaign he “leads”, he summarized on RTL.

A central rampart against “the extremes which would be a catastrophe”, affirmed the Prime Minister.

Echoing the program of the New Popular Front –– electoral coalition which brings together LFI, Socialists and Ecologists in particular – which promises in particular an increase in the minimum wage and an abandonment of the unpopular pension reform, Mr. Attal promised measures in favor of purchasing power during the weekend.

On Monday, he echoed the highly noticed comments made the day before by the captain of the French football team Kylian Mbappé who spoke “against extremes and ideas that divide”.

577 deputy seats are to be filled during this election scheduled for June 30 and July 7, which the RN is entering from a position of strength with around 30% of the voting intentions.

In the Europeans, Marine Le Pen’s party won 31.4% of the votes against 13.8% for the presidential camp, leading to the fall of the Paris stock market. The CAC 40 erased all its gains since January and fell 6.23% last week, its biggest weekly decline since March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He was showing signs of a rebound on Monday.

The outgoing majority will present “useful candidates” under the banner “Together for the Republic” in 489 constituencies, said Mr. Attal, but will support another candidate in “around sixty” cases.

“No reason to be afraid”

This type of withdrawal aims to “not leave French people the choice between the National Rally and La France insoumise”, explained former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Stunned by the dissolution, the presidential camp remains hopeful of retaining a majority, far from being achieved in view of the polls which only give it around 20% of voting intentions two weeks before the election.

With victory within reach, the RN is working to reassure voters, after 250,000 people (640,000 according to the CGT union) demonstrated on Saturday against the arrival of the far right to power.

“There is no reason to be afraid,” assured its vice-president Sébastien Chenu on France Inter, calling for “not to make people believe that everything will collapse or that nothing is possible” .

Its leader Jordan Bardella, promised to Matignon at only 28 years old, had already given pledges on pension reform – “important”, but not “priority”.

Marine Le Pen has made it known that she would not ask for Emmanuel Macron’s resignation if successful, ruling out the specter of an institutional crisis. She spoke of the constitution of a “government of national unity”.

Perhaps with some of his new allies from the Republicans (LR, right) in the baggage of Eric Ciotti, disowned by his authorities, but who claims 62 candidates “from the gathering of the rights” supported by the RN.

The “historic” branch of the anti-Ciotti LR, for its part, announced that it had invested “nearly 400 candidates”.

Far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour will indirectly support the RN by not presenting a candidate in almost half of the constituencies to favor “the architects of national unity” like Mr. Ciotti and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.

In second position in the polls with 25% of voting intentions, the left is already challenged to maintain its rediscovered union. A first gathering is planned for Monday evening in Montreuil, near Paris.

The alliance obtained the endorsement of former socialist president François Hollande, candidate in Corrèze (south) and the support of former socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin.

But tensions remain high, around the figure of the leader of the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and certain candidates chosen by his party La France Insoumise, such as Raphaël Arnault in Vaucluse (south) considered too extremist by the other forces of LEFT.