In difficulty for several weeks, the presidential majority ends, according to the figures communicated by the Ministry of the Interior, at the head of the first round of the legislative elections with 25.75% of the vote, ahead of the New People’s Union, ecological and social (Nupes), which obtained 25.66% of the vote. But these official results sparked fiery reactions within the left-wing coalition, convinced of having prevailed over the Together! Executive of La France insoumise, Manuel Bompard notably denounced “a new manipulation” of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, accusing him of having “appear artificially” the presidential coalition in the lead by failing to count the Nupes nuance for several candidates.
NEW HANDLING OF ALERT #DARMANIN
While #NUPES obtains 6,101,968 votes (i.e. 26.8%), the Ministry of the Interior attributes only 5,836,202 votes (i.e. 25.7%) to him to artificially appear the party of #Macron on your mind.
Hello Council of State?
—Manuel Bompard (@mbompard) June 13, 2022
“It is the Nupes campaign management which, by an email sent to the Ministry of the Interior on June 8, 2022, listed all the candidates to whom the shade ‘Nupes’ should be attributed.justifies the place Beauvau at France Télévisions.
Manuel Bompard is not angry and denounces several cases “manifest omission”. Three cases first raise questions in France. Manuel Bompard cites in particular Hervé Saulignac (who came first in the 1st district of the Ardèche), labeled “various left” in the results communicated by the Ministry of the Interior, and therefore not counted in the contingent of candidates for Nupes. The latter had in fact caused trouble within the coalition, by asserting that he was “socialist, not ‘rebellious'”. This position seems to have been interpreted by the ministry as a refusal of the Nupes investiture.
Manuel Bompard also cites the case of the socialist Dominique Potier, formally invested by the Nupes and came first in the 5th constituency of Meurthe-et-Moselle. But this socialist candidate had nevertheless refused this investiture. “It was my conscience not to want to take the Nupes label“, he reaffirmed on the evening of the first round, after having collected 44% of the votes. In this specific case, the label “various left” therefore seems appropriate.
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“Three candidates initially invested by the Nupes, but who had declared that they wanted to give up this nomination, were counted as various left”, responds the Ministry of the Interior, citing the cases of Hervé Saulignac and Dominique Potier, therefore, but also of Joël Aviragnet, in the 8th district of Haute-Garonne. Place Beauvau does not further specify the criteria that guided this choice.
Contacted by franceinfo, Joël Aviragnet declares to be the “sole candidate for the PS in the constituency under the Nupes agreement”. And when asked if his votes should be counted with the left-wing coalition, he kicks in: “Ask my electorate. We need to stop bothering us with political nonsense.” He is in favor of the social measures of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, but he denounces “the non-assistance to Ukraine, the exit from NATO or the non-respect of the European agreements” advocated by the leader of La France insoumise.
Hervé Saulignac, on the other hand, “do not understand” why Beauvau classified him as “various left”, his campaign team told franceinfo. The candidate “declared himself PS in the prefecture when he presented himself” but “it has been invested by the Nupes” and has not renounced this label.
Socialist side, we do not hide his astonishment. Contacted by franceinfo, the national secretary, Sébastien Vincini, “does not understand why our three socialists Aviragnet, Saulignac and Potier are not taken into account when they are well invested Nupes”. Pierre Jouvet, spokesperson for the PS, told franceinfo that Hervé Saulignac and Joël Aviragnet did not refuse the Nupes label.
These three candidacies won 44,420 votes, or 0.2% of the votes cast nationally. A symbolic remainder of votes which would above all allow Nupes to take the lead in the first round if it were counted, since the figures from the Ministry of the Interior credit the majority with an advance of only 21,359 ballots. The ministry, for its part, delivers similar cases concerning the presidential majority. Damien Abad (ex-LR), “which we can legitimately think is supported by ‘Together!’, is counted as ‘various right'”and the candidates Dominica Michel-Revert and Marie-Luce Penchard, close to the majority, are noted “diverse” and “diverse center”. That is 15,661 votes between them.
Another point debated: the overseas territories and Corsica, where the Nupes label was not retained. “In this list, however very complete, there was no overseas candidate.continues the ministry, referring to the names communicated by the left-wing coalition. “These candidates are also not listed on their official website”, which includes 544 personalities. In these territories, explains Manuel Bompard, “he there are local political formations which could not be represented during national negotiations” on the Nupes, explains Manuel Bompard, and “so it was difficult to say on their behalf who would be a candidate”. Clearly, the existence of local parties did not make it possible to apply the investiture in the same way as in France.
In Reunion, for example, “the different formations engaged by the Nupes agreement supported the same candidate”, Jean-Hugues Ratenon, pursues Manuel Bompard. “But there were local parties among them that were not represented in the national discussions”, which did not make it possible to establish an official agreement. The MP’s positions, however, leave little doubt about his enthusiastic feelings towards the left-wing coalition. In Martinique, Marie-Noelle Delannay, candidate of the Popular Union of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is counted “various left” by the ministry.
There was no official investiture in these territories, for lack of being able to integrate the local formations within the framework of the national negotiations upstream. Thus, the Socialist Party made a distinction appear between its candidacies in “of the constituencies affected by the Nupes agreement” – 69 names in total – and those in “districts not affected by the agreement” – eight names in total in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion and in the four Corsican constituencies.
So you have to look in detail. For example, what nuance to attribute to the candidates Marcellin Nadeau and Jean-Philippe Nilor, of the local Martinican formation Péyi-A, who came first in the 3rd and 4th constituencies? And what about Christian Baptiste, candidate of the Guadeloupe Democratic Progressive Party, who came second in the 2nd constituency of Guadeloupe? “We must be represented in the National Assembly in the group which brings together the PS, the other left-wing parties and the ecologists: the Nupes”, he wrote on Sunday, by way of thanks. In the absence of a formal agreement, the Nupes logo did not appear during his campaign.
The left-wing coalition believes that the votes won by these candidates should be counted, even in the constituencies not covered by the agreement.
In summary, two options are then available in these constituencies: to stick to the contours of the official agreement or to assign a Nupes label on a case-by-case basis. “What matters is knowing what corresponds to reality”adds Manuel Bompard, because these candidates, “if elected, will sit well in a popular union majority”. Franceinfo has tried to obtain a complete list of the candidacies claimed by Nupes in the “out of agreement” constituencies, complementary to that sent to the Ministry of the Interior. Unsuccessful so far.
To establish the results, franceinfo therefore sticks to the list declared by Nupes itself, and to the constituencies which are the subject of the coalition agreement. Some media, like The world, have chosen to label the 6,300 legislative candidates themselves, by including, for example, the candidates supported by Nupes in Corsica and overseas. The daily therefore announced results different from those communicated by the Ministry of the Interior, announcing the victory of Nupes by a short head ahead of Together! (26.10% of the vote against 25.81%).