After the submission of candidacies on Tuesday and the series of withdrawals from the National Rally, there are three days left before the end of the official campaign for the second round of legislative elections on Sunday, July 7.
While Jordan Bardella has already made it known that he would refuse the post of Prime Minister due to the lack of an absolute majority, Marine Le Pen explained on Tuesday that if the RN approached the threshold of 289 deputies, the threshold of an absolute majority, with “for example 270” elected representatives, her party would seek to attract “deputies from, for example, various right-wing, various left-wing, LR” to try to bring together the conditions for a government.
Key information:
⇒ Eric Ciotti wants to exclude Xavier Bertrand from the LR
⇒ Marine Tondelier does not close the door to the idea of a grand coalition
⇒ More than 210 candidates have announced their withdrawal
Eric Ciotti wants to exclude Xavier Bertrand from the LR
Invited on France 2 this Wednesday morning, the president of the Republicans Éric Ciotti, highly contested internally since his alliance with the National Rally, announced that he was undertaking an “exclusion procedure” against the president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand, accusing him of having “made a secret agreement with Emmanuel Macron”.
“What is he getting involved in? Why is he still bringing it up?” Xavier Bertrand replied shortly after, a guest on BFMTV-RMC. “Eric Ciotti is at the RN, I think that’s clear to everyone […] We can see it clearly: he is working for Marine Le Pen to try to create trouble,” he lashed out.
More than 210 withdrawals
According to an AFP count, 214 candidates qualified for the second round of the legislative elections have withdrawn. Some 311 three-way and four-way races were planned after the first round. The second round on Sunday will therefore give rise to 390 duels, 108 three-way and two four-way races.
The left has withdrawn more than 130 candidates and the presidential camp, 82. These candidates had mostly come third in a constituency where the National Rally was leading in the first round. The Republicans have also recorded three withdrawals. The official figure will be published this Wednesday.
In the Rhône, a candidate withdraws after submitting his candidacy
“It really wasn’t reasonable”: the Modem candidate in the 8th constituency of the Rhône, Dominique Despras, announced Tuesday evening that he was giving up his candidacy more than an hour after it was made official, to avoid a four-way race. “Because we maintain a spirit of responsibility and a republican spirit, we have decided to withdraw our candidacy,” the candidate announced in a publication on the social network Facebook.
The Monts d’Or constituency, northwest of Lyon, had been held by the right for a quarter of a century, but outgoing LR MP Nathalie Serre only came in fourth place on Sunday, nevertheless qualifying with 20.66% of the vote. National Rally candidate Jonathan Gery came in first with 33.46% of the vote, followed by New Popular Front candidate Anne Reymbaut (22.75%) and Dominique Despras (21.18%). “I found that it was really not reasonable to return to a four-way race,” he explained to AFP. “I thought that Nathalie Serre was going to withdraw, when I saw that she had not done so, I decided not to send the documents and the profession of faith.”
Marine Tondelier does not close the door to the idea of a grand coalition
The head of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier estimated on Tuesday that “we will surely have to do things that no one has ever done before in this country” in the event of an Assembly without a clear majority, but rejecting the idea of a new “Macronist Prime Minister”.
“Politics in this country cannot continue as before. We are going to have to change,” added the environmentalist during an interview on TF1’s 8pm news, calling for “solutions to be found” and for “some in the centre, on the right, to tell us how they want to work in the other direction.”
Edouard Philippe rejects any coalition with LFI
“We will see what comes out of the ballot boxes on Sunday. We will see what the majority will be, what the consultations will be,” Edouard Philippe reacted on TF1 on Wednesday to a potential coalition after the second round of the legislative elections.
“I am open to a new parliamentary majority that could go from the conservative right to the social democrats […] “It is obvious that there cannot be a discussion about a coalition with LFI,” stressed the former Prime Minister.
For Gabriel Attal, power will go either to the extreme right or “to Parliament”
Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday that following the legislative elections, power would be “either in the hands of a far-right government” or “in Parliament”, explaining that he was “fighting for this second scenario”, without, however, mentioning a “coalition”.
“Today, there is a bloc in a position to have an absolute majority in the National Assembly, it is the extreme right. Neither LFI, nor the New Popular Front, nor our candidates are able to form an absolute majority in the National Assembly alone,” the Prime Minister acknowledged on France Inter.
“At the end of this second round, either power will be in the hands of a far-right government, or power will be in Parliament. I am fighting for this second scenario,” explained Gabriel Attal. “And I am fighting so that in this second scenario the candidates of Ensemble pour la République (the presidential coalition) are sufficiently present in this National Assembly to protect the French from the tax increases wanted by many other parties, […] by defending the values of the Republic, by defending reinvestment in priority public policies such as security, for example, or justice,” he explained.