(Paris) The poor performance of the parties of President Emmanuel Macron and far-right figure Marine Le Pen calls into question the scenario of their confrontation in the second round of the 2022 presidential election, but any extrapolation becomes dangerous due to the overwhelming abstention.
Since the 2017 presidential election when Emmanuel Macron came to power by wresting the right and left from the center and defeating Marine Le Pen in the second round, observers and pollsters believe a reissue is possible in 2022, as historical parties seem stuck in nobody’s contradictions and struggles.
But the first round of regional and local elections on Sunday set a different panorama.
Al-Yaam newspaper analyzed the “return of the division with the power of the right and the left” Le FigaroThe day following this vote was marked by good performances by the traditional right (Republicans) and left (Socialist Party), who took full advantage of the bounty of the outgoing elected officials.
“As in the municipal elections (for 2020), the old world shows that it still stands,” comments political science professor Bruno Cotres. Right and left we hope this performance makes sense for 2022.
Xavier Bertrand, the Republican candidate in Hauts-de-France (Northern), who was already a presidential candidate, welcomed the “jaw-breaking” of the National Rally, the party of Mr.I Le Pen.
“For the first time in four years, we have been told that we are doomed to a second round of duel between Mr Macron and Mr.I Le Pen, […] “The result shows exactly the opposite,” Socialist leader Olivier Faure said on Sunday evening.
“Anything can happen”
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin warned on Monday in France II “not to rush to conclusions about the presidential election.” “With 70% abstentions, anything can happen in the second round” next Sunday.
Indeed, the main certainty of this first round of voting is the unfathomable disinterest of some 48 million voters, as evidenced by the historic abstention of nearly 70%.
“I don’t want to be in a form of euphoria that would be premature and irrelevant in the midst of a democratic crisis,” Mr Faury said Monday morning.
With such abstentions, “it is not clear that the result” corresponds to the reality in the country. It is the most legitimate part of the French electorate, and often an older electorate”, which moved, according to judges Stefan Zomsteig, an election expert at Ipsos .
Some talk about a warm-up ten months before the presidential election. “We wake up with the impression that the engine of our democracy is running empty,” the Catholic newspaper said. Cross In his editorial, “Resisting People”.
“This is an election marked by the end of the epidemic, by indifference to the specific issues of this election, which are difficult for the French to discern, and by the fact that for them the real meeting was not on Sunday, but the presidential in eleven months, political researcher Brice Tintorier analyzed on Radio France Inter.
However, in essence, the addition is salty for Emmanuel Macron’s presidential party, La République en Marche (LREM) and the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, two formations without strongholds.
LREM, a young party created to allow Emmanuel Macron to come to power in 2017, was aiming for 15% of the vote, but it’s a 10 or 11% cap and candidate ministers have generally failed.
“Of course we have disappointments,” the party’s head, Stanislas Guerini, admitted on RTL.
Despite this, “Nothing says that (Emmanuel Macron) will not perform well in 2022. We must differentiate between intermediate elections and the national ballot with two candidates to be identified,” said Christelle Laguerre, host of the political science conference at the University of Avignon (south) .
“Our voters didn’t come,” Jordan Bardella (RN) said on BFM-TV Monday morning, accusing the country’s successive leaders of “disgusting people with politics.” And the RN party, which opinion polls declared to be ahead in several regions, lost nine points compared to 2015.
“It would be a mistake to consider that […] It is necessarily a disaster for Marine Le Pen and will have repercussions for her 2022 campaign, and in this case, I don’t think those two cards should be linked. “They have completely different dynamics,” Antoine Prestel of the Jean Jaures Foundation told AFP.
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