THE PEN. Marine Le Pen comes first with more than 50% of the vote in the 11th constituency of Pas de Calais, a territory which includes Hénin-Beaumont. On a national scale, his party has progressed, at the expense of Reconquête!.
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[Mis à jour le 13 juin 2022 à 18h03] With 11,300 municipalities conquered out of the 35,000 that make up the 577 French constituencies, the RN is making clear progress. 18.7% is the party’s national score in this first round of legislative elections, which places it behind the Nupes-Ensemble duel, but well ahead of its 2017 score (13.20%). When the results were announced, Marine Le Pen called on her voters to “confirm and increase their vote” to “send a very large group of patriotic deputies to the new National Assembly” (comments reported by RTL).
It is also a personal victory for Marine Le Pen who comes first with 53.96% of the vote in her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont, in the 11th district of Pas-de-Calais, according to the complete results communicated by the ministry. inside. A substantial score, but not enough to win in the first round. Indeed, she did not manage to obtain more than 25% of the number of registered voters and will therefore be in a ballot against the candidate of the Nupes, Marine Tondelier, who collected 23.43%.
This duel hides a third candidate. This is that of the presidential majority, Alexandrine Pintus, who, with 12.32% of the vote, was unable to impose a triangle during the second round. However, her opinion will count: at the foot of the podium on the evening of June 12, she said in a communicated that she would slip a blank ballot into the ballot box on June 19, justifying: “The choice is between the extremes and the blank vote”. This refusal to choose in the event of a duel with Nupes is a major question that arises for the presidential majority. If on the evening of the first round, the government announced that it would give voting instructions on a case-by-case basis in the event of a duel between an RN and Nupès candidate in the second round, a reversal has taken place. Olivia Grégoire, spokesperson for the government, lifted the suspense on the morning of the 13th by asking during her visit to RTL so that no voice goes to the RN. Same thing for Stanislas Guérini, the new Minister of Transformation and the Public Service who has positioned himself in favor of Marine Tondelier in the Pas-de-Calais, so that “not a vote” benefits Marine Le Pen. The postponement of the votes of the voters of Ensemble could therefore slow down the ambition of Marine Le Pen to be re-elected, but also that of the 58 RN deputies who will be affected by this RN-Nupes configuration in the second round.
Their relationship has been rocky. After a slight rapprochement when Eric Zemmour called on his voters to vote for Marine Le Pen at the end of the first round, and cautious support during the intervening rounds, the far-right polemicist has somewhat broken the links during his reaction to the results of the second round. He recalled that “the defeat” struck “the name of Le Pen for the 8th time”, then stoking the wrath of the traditional far-right party. If he tried to save the furniture by proposing a union of rights to RN deputies who wanted it, and promised not to present any Reconquest candidate! faced with those of the RN to save the “national camp”, the damage was already done. Competition was revived, with frequent invectives between the two camps, whose history is marked by the defections of RN executives conquered by Eric Zemmour, including Marion Maréchal.
And it would seem that for Eric Zemmour, this confrontation was fatal. He is now suffering a second electoral defeat, after the 7% of votes collected in the presidential election, far from his ambitions to be the “big surprise” of 2022. He was eliminated in the 4th constituency of Var, his 23 19% of votes did not allow him to qualify in a second round which will see the candidate of Ensemble Sereine Mauborgne and the representative of RN Philippe Lottiaux compete. As RTL explains, his attempts to create a large party capable of establishing itself locally in the space of a year were in vain: even Guillaume Peltier, figurehead of his movement, was eliminated in the Loir -and-Cher. And what about Stanislas Rigault, the rising figure of Reconquête! who finished 4th with only 10.54% of the vote in the 2nd constituency of Vaucluse. Nationally, not a Reconquest candidate! did not pass the first round test. This result seems to sign the erasure of an ephemeral party in favor of the more established and more unifying RN. And this despite their ideological proximity to the extreme right.
What result can Marine Le Pen hope to have in the legislative elections?
In Hénin-Beaumont and in the 11th district of Pas-de-Calais, Marine Le Pen is on conquered ground. The candidate is calm about her potential victory in the legislative elections. Marine Le Pen obtained 53.96% of the votes at the end of the first round this Sunday, June 12, 2022. Despite everything, this figure would not be enough to ensure victory in one round. She faces in this constituency the candidate of Nupes, Marine Tondelier (23.43%), and that of the presidential majority, Alexandrine Pintus (12.32%). These figures confirm the results of Marine Le Pen during the last elections in her stronghold. In the first round of the presidential election, Marine Le Pen obtained 45.1% of the vote with 25 points ahead of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and 28 over Emmanuel Macron in his constituency. She also won the second round with 63.4% of the vote.
Marine Le Pen, candidate for the 2022 legislative elections
If she took the time to announce it, Marine Le Pen is officially a candidate in the legislative elections and is seeking a second term in the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais, that of her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont. It was first Jordan Berdella who affirmed the candidacy of the leader of the National Rally during a trip to Fréjus on April 28. A few days later, the confirmation came from the main interested party.
Marine Le Pen, who put forward the argument of the grassroots campaign and proximity to the French during the presidential campaign, could not give up her role as MP for Pas-de-Calais. Above all, after her defeat in the presidential election, she could not deprive herself of the last means at her disposal to weigh in national politics: a seat and an RN group in the National Assembly. The politician therefore hopes to obtain a sufficiently powerful group within the hemicycle to block certain reforms by Emmanuel Macron. At a meeting in Hénin-Beaumont on June 5, Marine Le Pen dangled the possibility of obtaining more than a hundred RN deputies: “Potentially, if all our voters come to defend our ideas, we will be able to send between 100 and 150 deputies to the next assembly”. A scenario which is based on the good results of the presidential candidate, “we gathered 50% of the voices in more than 150 constituencies and 55% of the votes in more than 90 constituencies”. Great ambitions which have however been revised downwards because at the end of the presidential election Marine Le Pen was aiming for nothing less than a majority in the National Assembly, a scenario difficult to imagine by leading the race alone and in the current context. of tripartism between the alliance of the left, the presidential majority and the extreme right.
Throughout the campaign for these legislative elections, the leaders of the RN have multiplied the attacks against the left-wing coalition. As of May 11, Jordan Bardella declared on BFMTV: “Monsieur Mélenchon wants to transform France into a gigantic squat and deliver it to the predators from below”. Marine Le Pen spoke, a week later, of “the Burkini coalition” and “of a generalized ZAD” to talk about Nupes. While she left the reins of the party to Jordan Bardella for several months, also responsible for organizing the legislative elections, Marine Le Pen could become disillusioned at the national level. Put on the side with the eruption of the Nupes, the National Rally did not weigh as much in the debate of these legislative elections as before the presidential election. The enthusiasm of April, despite the defeat, seems to have given way to uncertainty. Many calls to vote have been launched by the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who could count on more deputies at the Bourbon Palace after the 2e tower, without however being able to play a determining role within the hemicycle.
Did Marine Le Pen miss her campaign?
Although her candidacy for the legislative elections was formalized only a few days after the presidential election, Marine Le Pen only started her campaign two weeks before the first round of the legislative elections and her trips were mostly organized in the last days preceding the ballot: in the Loiret on June 7, in Perpignan on the 8th or even in the Hérault on the 9th. The deputy of course made a stop in her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont where she is running. She even gave her only campaign meeting there on June 5 before spending the last day of the campaign there on Friday June 10. Yet in the constituency the candidates of the presidential majority, Alexandrine Pintus, and of Nupes, Marine Tondelier, pointed the finger at the absence of Marine Le Pen on the ground, accusing her of speaking “always at the national level” according to France info.
The absence of Marine Le Pen was also noticed nationally during the first weeks of the legislative campaign. A fifteen-day break taken after the presidential election but which wasted precious time for the candidate and which above all broke the dynamic around RN and its leader. A momentum which would however have been welcome for the legislative elections. Back in the political arena, Marine Le Pen did not shine by her ambition but rather by her resigned, almost defeatist air. The deputy first set the objectives of simply forming a parliamentary group of 15 elected representatives before raising the bar to “at least 60 deputies” sitting in the National Assembly. It was not until the last hours of the campaign to see the combative Marine Le Pen hammering the possibility for the RN to have 150 deputies, on the condition of the mobilization of voters as during the presidential election.
This campaign, of which we only remember the last week, from the only meeting of Marine Le Pen, given on June 5 in Hénin-Beaumont, was also marked by the falsely offensive position of the deputy of Pas-de-Calais. The candidate chained attacks against her main rivals: Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of Nupes, and Emmanuel Macron. Excessive criticism of their balance sheet, their measurement and their topicality, the declaration on the forces of order of the Insoumis or the disaster of the Stade de France for the Head of State, which took precedence over the defense of his own ideas. A strategic mistake? This behavior may have given the impression of a candidate on the defensive and in a hurry to try to convince or regain the favor of the voters.
What is Marine Le Pen’s program for the legislative elections?
Marine Le Pen takes the same line as that defended during the presidential campaign. The proposals and subjects that she and the other candidates of the RN intend to bring to the National Assembly are modeled on the presidential program of the far right. And, as during the presidential campaign, one of the subjects that comes up most often a few days before the vote in the legislative elections is purchasing power, at the heart of the news when inflation has climbed by five points, for which Marine Le Pen defends a reduction or even an abolition of VAT and shoots the temporary aid and the energy or food checks put in place by the Head of State. A law for the purchasing power must precisely be voted at the end of June at the end of the legislative according to the announcements of the government. Retirement is also a point of friction between the LREM group and allies and that of the RN because if the first defends the reform of the pension and the postponement of the age to 64 or 65 years, the second militates for a progressive system allowing the retirement between 60 and 62 for long careers and later depending on the age of entry into working life.