PARIS – Emmanuel Macron is ready to fight for the European elections. After nominating the list leader Valérie Hayer, also a young president of the Renew group, the French leader also gave the green light to the candidates for the list that will represent the government majority in the vote on 9 June. In polls on voting intentions, the majority list is clearly surpassed by that of the Rassemblement National, led by the president of the far-right party Jordan Bardella. In the latest Ifop survey for Lci, Le Figaro e South Radiothe RN list is at 31.5%, compared to 16.5% of Valérie Hayer’s «Besoin d’Europe» list, followed by the Ps-Place Publique list led by Raphaël Glucksmann (13.5%).
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The leader of the PS, Raphaël Glucksmann (afp)
And Glucksmann himself, leader of the once glorious socialist party relegated to the margins in 2017 by the Macron cyclone, is one of the surprise protagonists of the campaign, and even threatens to overtake the Macronist candidate in the polls. Macron’s speech on Europe, in which he warned of the risk of seeing the dream of the founding fathers of the EU “die”, did not shift the balance. Hayer, who is also the leader of Renew in Strasbourg, is fighting mainly against Jordan Bardella, leader of the Rassemblement National, which has been stable above 30 percent in the polls for at least four months. A duel that for now seems to have an announced winner: Bardella, 28 years old, to whom Marine Le Pen has entrusted the reins of the party and now the battle for the European elections.
Jordan Bardella (afp)
The Rassemblement National wants to transform the European elections into a sort of “mid-term” for the head of state. “Macron demission” the militants shout. “If you go to vote there will be no need for him to resign” replies Bardella. Abstention is one of the RN’s concerns for the vote on 9 June. Bardella is continuing to travel around France to mobilize voters and not take for granted the predictions of the polls in which he increasingly broadens the categories of his electorate, no longer only in the most popular classes or among the young, but also in the middle class and among seniors. “If Jordan Bardella has an advantage over Marine Le Pen, it is that he is simply not called Le Pen,” observes political scientist Mathieu Gallard.
Marine Le Pen (AFP)
Less than one in two French people (49%) say they are interested in the European elections according to a survey by Viavoice, however Radio France, France Televisions e France Media World. Viavoice also asked the French what the “priority issues” were and the economy came first for 49% of those interviewed. Immigration is in second place with 44%. Abstention is also the worry of the Macronist Renaissance party which on Monday presented a 48-point program together with its allies (the centrists of Modem, Udi and Horizons). Among the proposals, the creation of a European fund to finance European defense, a series of protectionist rules for a “European trade shield” that defends the continent’s companies in the face of increasingly unbridled global competition. There is also no shortage of measures on security and immigration, themes favored by the far right, such as “establishing a European Council for internal security”, whose role would be to combat “forms of transnational crime” such as drug and human trafficking humans.
Jean-Luc Melenchon (photogramma)
And if the historic right-wing party, Les Républicains, hovers around 8% with a campaign focused on the economy, and in particular the worsening of France’s indebtedness for which Macron is said to be responsible, the hegemonic force on the left, the France Insoumise, is in difficulty. The leader of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, Manon Aubry, is overshadowed by Glucksmann’s star at 8%. The Greens are not doing any better with the “Les Ecologistes” list with the list leader Marie Toussaint at 6.5% in voting intentions, whereas in 2019 the candidate Yannick Jadot reached 13.9%. The left, which presented itself united in the legislative elections in June 2017, in the Nupes coalition, is paying for its divisions but it is still too early to know what political consequences the vote on 9 June in the Left will have. The impact on the government is even more uncertain. Bardella has already asked for a dissolution of parliament and new legislative elections, if the result of the RN is confirmed. A hypothesis that seems unlikely at the moment.