The left and the camp of President Emmanuel Macron have only a few hours left on Friday to try to narrow the gap with the far right, still largely the favorite for the first round of legislative elections in France, against a backdrop of constitutional standoff. The campaign for the first round on Sunday officially ends this Friday at midnight. The second round will take place on July 7.
Information to remember
⇒ Emmanuel Macron denounces the “arrogance” of the RN
⇒ A former advisor to Emmanuel Macron warns against “the perilous temptation of neither RN nor LFI”
⇒ Gabriel Attal accuses Bardella of supporting “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic” candidates
Macron denounces the “arrogance” of the RN
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced in Brussels the “arrogance” of the National Rally which, according to him, has “already distributed” all government positions even before the legislative elections, and deplored the “uninhibited speech”, “racism or anti-Semitism” in the political debate. The leaders of the far-right party affirm that in the event of victory and access to government, it will be up to them to appoint the future European commissioner representing France, and that the president will only be an “honorary” army chief. .
“I will not make any comment on all this,” the head of state replied to the press on the night of Thursday to Friday at the end of a European summit, referring to the statements of members of his government who criticized a distortion of the Constitution. “But what arrogance!”, he launched about the RN. “All the positions are already distributed, they are already in place”, “now, we should not go to vote”, he added. “Who are they to explain what the Constitution should be?”, he insisted.
A former Macron advisor warns against “the perilous temptation of neither RN nor LFI”
Philippe Grangeon, former advisor to Emmanuel Macron and ex-boss of En Marche, warned his camp on Friday against “the perilous temptation of neither RN nor LFI”, pleading for “clear instructions” on the evening of the first round of the legislative elections in favor of all “candidates who will oppose” the RN. L’Express publishes his column to read in full.
Attal accuses Bardella of supporting “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic” candidates
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, leader of the outgoing majority in the legislative elections, accused his far-right rival Jordan Bardella on Thursday of presenting “around a hundred candidates” who had made “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks”, which the leader of the RN objected en bloc.
“We cannot build appeasement and unity when we present more than a hundred candidates in this election, that is to say almost one in five […] “for which we found racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks,” said Mr. Attal during a televised debate on France2 with Mr. Bardella and the socialist Olivier Faure, who represented the New Popular Front.
Ciotti calls for “general mobilization”
Eric Ciotti called on his LR and National Rally (RN) supporters in Nice on Thursday evening for “general mobilization” during the two rounds of the legislative elections to allow his alliance with the far right to “win, govern France and turn it around “.
“I know that you are proud and happy about the liberation of thought,” he declared in front of some 300 people who had come to the port of Nice for this first meeting since the announcement of his alliance, the holding of which was only made public 30 minutes in advance. At the same time, the Paris judicial court declared inadmissible on Thursday in summary proceedings the third attempt by LR to exclude its president Eric Ciotti, who has concluded an electoral alliance with the RN, rejecting the party’s request to appoint an ad hoc representative to replace him.
Glucksmann calls on the majority to “get out of neither-nor”
MEP Raphaël Glucksmann called on Thursday on the Macronist camp, which is sending the National Rally and the left back to back in the legislative campaign, to “get out of the neither-nor” which is according to him “a consent to the seizure of power by the RN”.
“So that there is no extreme right majority, the macronie has one thing to do, and that is to get out of neither-nor”, and to say “very clearly that the priority of priorities is to prevent the RN from having an absolute majority”, declared to the press Mr. Glucksmann, who came to support the candidate of the left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP), Aurélien Rousseau, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines ).
The left, “the only possible barrier” against the RN, says Hollande
Former socialist president François Hollande, at a rally Thursday evening in Corrèze, predicted a “punishment” for Emmanuel Macron’s majority in the legislative elections, making the left “the only possible barrier” against the “danger” of the National Rally. “The presidential majority has been knocked out by its creator,” Mr. Hollande snapped, mocking his successor at the Elysée who “adds to it every day, further amplifying the punishment that will be inflicted on his political family.”
Also criticizing a “dissolved” right, whose “president left with the key” and which “fed the extreme right” with its “excesses”, he hammered home that “there was only one possible barrier left: the left” in the face of the “danger the country is facing”. “We are the only ones who can straighten out the country and restore hope to a population that has lost it”, he declared.
RN: Vallaud-Belkacem’s dual nationality posed a “problem of dual loyalty”
Outgoing RN MP Roger Chudeau said on BFMTV on Thursday that a member of the government could not be binational because this posed a “problem of dual loyalty”, taking the example of the former Minister of Education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem whose appointment was “a mistake”.
Asked about the jobs that the National Rally would prohibit citizens with dual nationality from having if they came to power, Roger Chudeau mentioned ministerial jobs, citing a “specific example”: “Najat Vallaud Belkacem, Franco-Moroccan, what did she do? She destroyed the public secondary school and above all she wanted to introduce Arabic classes in primary school,” he said.
“She herself said that she was a sort of gateway, a bridge, between Morocco and France. She claimed it as a quality,” he added, referring more generally to “a problem of dual loyalty at a given moment.”
Legal action against an RN candidate
The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region announced on Thursday that it had taken legal action to request the destruction of the voting slips of the National Rally candidate in the 2nd constituency of Ain, Andrea Kotarac, falsely presented as “regional president”.
“The false mention of this quality […] thus constitutes a usurpation of elective functions, the manifestly illegal and particularly serious nature of which is likely to affect the sincerity of the vote”, underlined the community in a request to the judge of the administrative court of Lyon that AFP consulted.