One platform can sometimes hide another, according to its signatories. Take the text published on June 25 in the columns of World. We thought the message was clear: socialist, environmentalist and communist executives, as well as some figures from the Macronist left wing, collectively called for “avoiding triangulars in the second round”, by removing the least well placed candidate in favor of the “candidate of the democratic forces remaining against the National Rally”. And this, “whether they belong to the New Popular Front, the outgoing majority or the Republican right”. But allow this close friend of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, minister who also put her stamp on the text, to add a nuance: “It’s outside the LFI, of course.” “HUH?!”, chokes Sandrine Rousseau. “It’s a total scandal, if that’s it. In spirit, it was everything but the RN,” continues the outgoing MP, also a signatory. The first interlocutor tempers: “It is above all a message sent to the reasonable left.”
Anticipate the second round before the first: for a few days now, part of the political class has been looking for a solution to the probable mass arrival of new far-right deputies. A risk accentuated by the hypothetical multiplication of triangulars, on the evening of June 30. Because a recent survey, published by the Odoxa institutepredicts around a hundred – 170 in the upper range, a historic number – compared to only 8 in 2022. Emmanuel Macron’s central bloc, in good third to read the opinion studies, behind the New Popular Front and the Rally national, could logically be ordered by the left to withdraw its candidate for their benefit.
“It’s really a case of conscience, it’s very hard”
Marine Tondelier, patron saint of environmentalists, has therefore sounded the alarm. “Each time an environmentalist candidate, member of the Popular Front, comes in third position, he will withdraw in favor of the candidate who respects the values of the Republic to beat the extreme right,” she said to the AFP. Before putting pressure on the outgoing majority, requesting “an emergency meeting” with the main leaders of the presidential coalition, and reiterating that environmentalists “will do everything” to prevent the RN from coming to power. “And you?”, she asked in an open letter published this Wednesday on X.
© / The Express
Officially, Emmanuel Macron has not yet decided anything. After denouncing the programs of the “two extremes”, the RN and France Insoumise, suspected, he even dares, of leading France to “civil war”, the tenant of the Élysée is also looking for a parade. “We must not lock ourselves away and study things case by case. On the evening of the first round, we will say ‘neither RN, nor LFI’, predicts a strategist of the head of state. If we have a moderate socialist, you will have to make the decision to withdraw when you have no chance of winning.”
But in Macronie, here is a monochrome of positions, concerning the steps to follow in the event of an unsuccessful second round and other unfavorable triangulars. Here, Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate for Business, who swears to “vote blank” during a duel between the RN and the alliance of the left – but who qualifies by assuring that she can vote “for a moderate socialist”. There Jean-Yves Le Drian who says one day “never vote for an LFI candidate” and the next day offers his support to a candidate of the New Popular Front, and not the least: his former friend, President François Hollande. Or again, Stéphane Travert, deputy of the left wing, leaving the Channel, who would have “no problem” to vote or to withdraw in favor of his communist competitor, and who could do the same if he was acting like an environmentalist or a socialist. On the other hand, there is no question of voting for a rebel if the situation arises. “They are not in the Republican field,” he said.
“Sunday evening, we will corner them”
Some have an extensive vision of this same republican field. Like Clément Beaune, “ready to vote for an LFI candidate against the RN”. “I said that I would never put an equal sign between the extreme left, even La France Insoumise, and the extreme right of the RN or Reconquête!”, he said at the microphone of France info. “You must always vote for the party which faces the RN. Even if it means withdrawing if there is a risk of victory for the extreme right”, details the same in the columns of the Tribune Sunday.
Others, unlike the previous three, are directly concerned by this possibility. Very likely, in the 1st constituency of Moselle, where the Renaissance deputy Belkhir Belhaddad had already narrowly qualified for the second round in 2022, between the LFI and RN candidates, before winning by a wide margin. “The Insoumis are not racist and fascist, with a project of national preference. They nonetheless remain a dangerous party. But it’s really a case of conscience, it’s very hard,” he sighs from L’Express. “If the situation arises, I will decide on Sunday evening with my people. But my fight, since I was very young, has always been the National Rally: it is perhaps the beginning of an answer…” Last fall, on the sidelines of a trip to Hayange, the elected official had been insulted, called “scum” by the RN deputy Laurent Jacobelli. The latter had been indicted.
On the left, we are keeping a close eye on things. The strategists of the Socialist Party have taken out their calculators to better put pressure on Macronie from Sunday evening: in their projections, the pink house anticipates a hundred duels between the New Popular Front and the RN, 60% of which would concern socialist candidates. So Pierre Jouvet, a newly elected MEP, announces: “On Sunday, we are going to corner them: we are going to withdraw everywhere, including in RN-LR duels (not Ciottists, Editor’s note).” “If the presidential majority continues its neither-nor, we will lose these duels. That is what will make the difference between a relative majority and an absolute majority of the RN in the hemicycle. It is Macronie that will then be responsible,” adds a bigwig from the pink house.
Stéphane Troussel, president of the departmental council of Seine-Saint-Denis insists: “If the Macronists do not withdraw, they will be defeated and dishonored.” There remains this significant data. What will be worth, Sunday evening, the demonetized words of a President of the Republic, let go over the days by his troops? Time will be running out: the submission of applications for the second round is set for 6 p.m. the following day, Monday July 1. A well-established Macronist summarizes: “The instructions on the territory where I live and am elected, it is I who give them.”
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