MELENCHON. With the approach of the vote on Sunday, the Nupes imposes itself as the main force of opposition to Together!. Will this unifying capacity be enough to send Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Matignon?
Look for a legislative result near you
[Mis à jour le 17 juin 2022 à 16h02] Rue Dieu in Paris was chosen by Jean-Luc Mélenchon to close the Nupes legislative campaign. After unfurling banners in favor of the left-wing coalition in the streets of Paris, the Insoumis leader spoke during a quick press briefing. For his last words, he chose to focus on the fight against climate change. “It’s time to change the rules of society as a whole to deal with the consequences of climate change,” he said, before withdrawing away from the cameras for the reserve period which starts this evening. His eyes are now turned to Sunday’s election, decisive for a Nupes which pursues its objective of being a force of protest and opposition to the presidential majority to create surprise. During this between-two-rounds, Elisabeth Borne and Jean-Luc Mélenchon never ceased to crush each other by interposed TV sets, the dean of the left recalling his ambition to replace her at Matignon. On Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Twitter account, we can also read: “If you don’t want Macron: vote Nupes”, a sentence that is similar to an incitement to the dam vote. So many clues that echo Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s wish to become Prime Minister, as he has been asking the French for more than a month. So the Nupes, future opposition force to the Assembly or potential holder of the majority? It is necessary to shed some light on the intentions of this new nuance which bears the colors of the left.
Based on the 25.7% of votes obtained in the first round of the legislative elections, the Nupes, a left-wing coalition led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, defies the presidential majority which obtains substantially the same score. In fact, the boss of France Insoumise, who managed to unite the parties around the program of this political nuance, wishes to impose the left as the majority in Parliament, and become Prime Minister. With 385 qualified candidates in the second round, the left recorded a clear progression compared to the 145 figures (then distributed between the different parties) present in the duel of the second round in the 572 constituencies of the 2017 election. “The truth is that the party presidential election, at the end of the first round, is beaten and defeated,” said the Insoumis leader, all smiles, in a speech reacting to the results. But with nearly 280 duels Together against Nupes in the second round, more than a hundred more than the 127 duels of 2017, the competition promises to be very tough. Can he really enter Matignon?
On the evening of the 12th, Jean-Luc Mélenchon wasted no time in speaking about the results of the Nupes in the first round of the legislative elections. “I call on our people to surge next Sunday to definitively reject the disastrous projects of the majority of Mr. Macron”, he launched to his voters, and to the very many abstainers (more than 52%) of this first round. He thus mentioned all the measures of the presidential majority that his formation intends to block or slow down by obtaining a majority in the Assembly, such as “retirement at 65” or “forced labor for the RSA”. Instead of this model, he called on the French to vote for fixed prices, for the increase of the Smic to 1500 euros and for the release of the index of civil servants. “In a month, retirement at 60 will be up for debate and who knows, the tenure of the 800,000 public service contract workers,” he added. These are therefore the ambitions of the left-wing parties united within the Nupes, which can today boast of having sent 385 candidates to the second round, much more than the 145 that they had separately managed to bring to the second. tour in 2017, as explained The world. While five years ago, the main duels opposed the formation of Emmanuel Macron to the Republicans, with this configuration in 234 of the 573 rounds, they fall today to 18, and give way to 276 Together-Nupes clashes for this second round.
The first round was therefore a turning point in the usual distribution of seats between the political parties. But the major challenge remains that of next Sunday. And, in this game, the Nupes is not guaranteed to win. In any case, this is what most projections from polling institutes suggest. Ipsos-Sopra Steria for France Télévisions, Radio France and France Médias Monde notably revealed its estimate at the end of this first round: the presidential majority emerged victorious with between 255 and 295 deputies sent to the Palais-Bourbon. This high number is in fact much lower than the 346 who sat in the Assembly under the colors of Ensemble over the past five years. And, unless there is a very good performance, the current presidential majority could miss the absolute majority threshold, set at 289 seats. But all the same: Together would obtain at least the relative majority, which leaves between 150 and 190 deputies for Nupès, still according to the Ipsos projection. It’s enough to deprive Emmanuel Macron of the absolute majority, but not to hold it yourself.
For Nupes, which presents itself as the third French political force since the 21.95% of votes collected by Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the first round of the presidential election, the stakes are high. The left-wing parties united in this popular union intend to obtain a parliamentary majority to influence the policies of the government, and, above all, to allow their leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, to become Prime Minister. This objective, he revealed it the day after the presidential election, in a solemn declaration made on the set of BFMTV. A surprising request, since the head of government is not elected but appointed by the President of the Republic, as indicated in Article 8 of the Constitution. However, the ambition of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not impossible. Because, article 49 of the Constitution tells us, in a particular case, the Head of State may be forced to choose a Prime Minister from the opposing camp: if an opposition party wins a majority in the legislative elections. To obtain the confidence of the Assembly, Emmanuel Macron will then have to appoint Prime Minister the person chosen by the political alliance which holds the majority. In any case, this is what all the presidents faced with cohabitation in the history of the Fifth Republic have done, by appointing the leader of the majority. “He will have no choice but to accept cohabitation because we will not vote for confidence”, insisted Jean-Luc Mélenchon, anxious to recall what could happen if Emmanuel Macron appoints another Prime Minister than him, or at least a personality who would not come from the Nupes.
But according to the polls, this scenario is somewhat unlikely. On the other hand, the possibility of obtaining a relative majority is emerging in a credible manner. In this case, the government would have the largest group in the National Assembly, without reaching the threshold of 289 deputies. Consequently, the executive could be hampered in the application of its program, because the number of opposition deputies would be greater than that of the majority. So, for each bill, an alliance would be required, which could lead to a situation of political paralysis. But at Nupes, the project gets stuck a little: despite the agreements between the main parties, it faces dissenting left candidates, especially among the Socialists, who could well capture a few percentages. The union therefore promises a great operation for the left-wing parties, but obtaining a majority that would allow Jean-Luc Mélenchon to claim the post of Prime Minister does not look easy.
“Bah so good man, you’re going to name him”. This is the provocative sentence that Manuel Bompard indirectly addressed to the President of the Republic during his visit to the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône, where he competes to replace Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has been the deputy for the last five years. The ex-campaign director of the Insoumis leader was referring here to his appointment as Prime Minister that Emmanuel Macron will be forced to pronounce if it happens that the Nupès, union of the left carried by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, wins a majority after the legislative elections which begin this Sunday. This wish to become the head of government, the veteran of the left formulated it the day after the presidential election by calling, during an interview broadcast live on BFMTV, the French to “elect Prime Minister” via a victory of the left in the “third round”, that of the legislative elections. “If it does not suit the president, he can leave, I will not leave,” he said facing the camera, ready to do anything to enforce the Nupès program, in particular “the increase of the SMIC to 1400 €”. After the first round, the ambition is intact. Jean-Luc Mélenchon still intends to settle in Matignon at the end of the second legislative round. “The presidential majority is on the way to becoming the presidential minority”, even declared on France 2 the first Secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, playful like the other executives of the left at the idea of ”surging” in the Assembly.
MP for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône since 2017, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has decided not to stand for re-election for these legislative elections. Instead, he prefers to “hand over”, with the aim of shedding light on the new generations of rebels, to whom he had addressed in particular during his speech reacting to the results of the first round of the presidential election: “Do better!” he told them. And the baton passed to a central figure, his former campaign manager Manuel Bompard. “It is Bompard who will be a candidate. In the Insoumis, he is one of the most eminent figures of the new generation. I entrust him to you, elect him”, he declared in front of the Marseillais gathered for a meeting last month.
Not representing himself was for Jean-Luc Mélenchon the way to send a signal about his real intentions: to break away from partisan ties, or at least political strategies, to take the battle to the national level and impose himself as Prime Minister. from the country. This is in particular what explained to the Parisian the deputy of Seine-Saint-Denis and spokesperson for the LFI movement Alexis Corbière, who believed that his leader “optimized” to be “the most available in this national legislative campaign whose objective is victory”. Finally, Manuel Bompard took the lead in the Marseille constituency with 56.03% of the vote. Despite this high score, he will have to go through a second round, the participation rate having been only 38.11% in the city center of Marseille. He will face Najat Akodad, the LREM candidate who follows him from afar, with 14.87% of the votes collected.
The four main parties that make up the alliance have agreed on more than 650 common programmatic proposals. This program has as its base that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the Popular Union for the 2022 presidential election, entitled The common future. Among the common proposals of the Nupes, we find the increase of the Smic to 1500€, the reduction of the legal age of retirement to 60 years, the establishment of an “ecological planning”, or the creation of an “autonomy allowance” for young people. The program of the Nupes also indicates the points of divergence existing between the various formations, “which will be put to the wisdom of the Assembly”.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon took 3rd place in the 1st round of the 2022 presidential election. With 21.95% of the votes cast, he failed 1.2 points behind Marine Le Pen and the second round. He thus improved his result compared to the 1st round of 2017, where he came in 4th position behind François Fillon, with 19.58% of the vote. It was Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s 3rd presidential election: in 2012, he had already come 4th in the 1st round, but with only 11.1% of the vote, far behind François Hollande (28.63).