The communist Fabien Roussel is a candidate for re-election in the legislative elections in the North. But in his constituency, the RN had the advantage in the last election.
Member of Parliament for the 20th constituency of the North since 2017, Fabien Roussel hopes to be re-elected in the 2024 legislative elections. But the game promises to be tight for the national secretary of the French Communist Party because the far right is making progress on his territory. During the European elections, Jordan Bardella’s list came well ahead in this constituency, which notably includes the town of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux.
54.4% of voters in the constituency who went to the polls on June 9 voted for the National Rally. Coming in second position, the PCF list only collected 11.34%. Between them, the left-wing parties which now form the New Popular Front obtained 27.79% of the votes in the European elections. Results which indicate that the balance of power is in favor of the extreme right, even if participation in the vote was relatively low.
Five candidates in the constituency
Already, the re-election of Fabien Roussel in 2022 was not easy: the communist came first in the first round of the legislative elections, but with only a point and a half ahead of the RN candidate, Guillaume Florquin. In the second round, Roussel won with 54.40% of the votes. For the 2024 legislative elections, Fabien Roussel will once again be opposed to Guillaume Florquin for the RN, as well as to Elisabeth Gondy (invested by LR), Pierre-Luc Vervandier (presidential majority) and Dimitri Mozdzierz (LO).
What do the polls say? At the country level, the National Rally is given the lead in voting intentions in the legislative elections: according to the Ifop barometer of June 17 for the JDD, 33% of those questioned plan to vote for Jordan Bardella’s party in the first round, against 28 % for the New Popular Front, which takes second place. In the second round, the projections for the number of seats in the National Assembly are tight: according to the Cluster17 survey of June 14, the RN would obtain between 195 and 245 deputies, while the New Popular Front would have between 190 and 235.