REPORT. “It’s not time for celebration but for combat,” says François Ruffin, who came out on top in the first round of legislative elections in the Somme

How will the voters of the presidential camp position themselves? Sunday evening, June 30, Gabriel Attal called on his candidates to withdraw from the second round when they came third. This is what the Ensemble candidate did in the first constituency of the Somme, coming third behind the RN candidate and the outgoing MP François Ruffin, New Popular Front candidate.

Albane Branlant has announced that she is withdrawing “faced with the risk of the National Rally” : “I make a difference between political adversaries and enemies of politics”, she explained. An inevitably welcome withdrawal for François Ruffin’s activists.

For the New Popular Front candidate, “it is not time for celebration but for combat” and regarding this withdrawal: “I would have hoped for a declaration that was clearer than that. But I take the distinction that it makes between the National Rally which is labeled extreme right and which is not in the field of the Republic, and a left-wing candidate which carries humanist values.” This gives a new voice to the activists of François Ruffin’s micro-party, “Picardie debout”. They expect Macronist voters to follow these calls to block the National Rally: “I hope so because if they go to the RN side then… Honestly no.”

Especially since, according to this activist, left-wing voters have proven in the past that they have not hesitated to make a choice: “We, twice, did the job. We took our responsibilities, we voted with all the necessary cringe, but we did the work to prevent the RN from winning. So I think that the job this week will be to mobilize our troops and then to remind the others of their responsibility.” François Ruffin and his teams will begin towing on Monday afternoon and believe they can win against “a puppet candidate” of the National Rally.