LEGISLATIVE. The results of the 2022 legislative elections, the first round of which takes place this weekend, will be known this Sunday evening. But several underlying trends can be retained from the campaign that has just ended…
It is therefore left for the “third round” long awaited by the opposition to Emmanuel Macron. The 2022 legislative elections take place this weekend, more precisely this Sunday, June 12, 2022 in the metropolis. And it will be necessary to wait until 8 p.m. or even the later hours of the evening to have a sufficiently reliable overview of the results and the balances which will be put in place for the second round, the following Sunday. These legislative elections remained uncertain until the end of the campaign, which officially ended this Friday at midnight. The accumulation of the polls of voting intentions will not have made it possible to determine which political formation will come out on top at the national level this Sunday, even less which majority will emerge at the end of the two rounds of voting.
However, without even waiting for the results of these legislative elections, fundamental trends are emerging from the campaign that has just taken place before our eyes. At least five which, already, will serve as a context for the result of the ballot and as a setting for the new stammering five-year term, from the confirmation of a political recomposition around three major poles to the upheaval of the electoral calendar through the advent of a new force on the left.
1- A confirmed recomposition around 3 blocks
This is undoubtedly the most visible trend of these 2022 legislative elections: the ballot aimed at renewing the 577 elected members of the National Assembly already confirms the political recomposition of the country around three major blocs: a progressive bloc and liberal around Emmanuel Macron, a “popular” and environmentalist bloc around Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his allies and finally an identity and sovereignist bloc around Marine Le Pen. Six weeks after the presidential election in April, the three candidates who came out on top find themselves in the legislative elections, with the winner Emmanuel Macron who indirectly confronts the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, not a candidate but a leader of the left, with Matignon in line with target. Marine Le Pen aspires to obtain a group which she would lead in the Assembly.
The latest polls published before the end of the official campaign only confirmed this tripartition of the political landscape also described by several media, such as The world lately. This has been consolidated since the 2017 presidential election thanks to the various intermediate elections (European, municipal, regional, etc.). In this threesome, the presidential coalition, which put to death the traditional right and left, has had a fragile advantage for 5 years now, the other two blocs competing in turn for the status of first opponent.
2- The advent of a new force on the left
This is undoubtedly a more recent trend, but it also seems to be the culmination of a series of movements on the left in recent years: the creation of Nupes, the “New Popular Ecological and Social Union” around Jean- Luc Mélenchon, is both the result of a slow agony of the Socialist Party, which gradually lost its hold on the left in France, and of numerous failed attempts at alliances, from the plural left in the early 2000s to Europe -Ecology The Greens in the following decade.
The advent of Nupes is undoubtedly also the sign that the center of gravity of the left has moved towards a more radical form, Eurosceptic or even anti-European and no longer displaying any complacency vis-à-vis the market economy. After the legislative elections, in the event of victory or defeat, it is indeed the solidity of this new building, bringing together personalities and activists from sometimes very different backgrounds, which will be at stake.
3- A ballot that is not (no longer) the logical continuation of the presidential election
These legislative elections undoubtedly also sign a disruption of the electoral calendar as conceived in the early 2000s with the establishment of the five-year term, in any case of its logic and its spirit. This calendar, which backs the legislative elections to the presidential election, was supposed to allow the elected president to have a clear majority in the Assembly to carry out his reforms. But 20 years after its establishment, the consistency between the two national elections is no longer so obvious, the majority in the National Assembly having obviously not been acquired for Emmanuel Macron: the absolute majority (289 deputies out of 577) is indeed directly threatened, a relative majority seems possible, the scenario of a cohabitation will have been evoked and will even have been the major campaign argument of the left.
The political configuration of the 2022 presidential election has also been reversed. While France witnessed its second Macron-Le Pen duel in April, it is now the left that is emerging as the main rival of the Macronists, with a very offensive Jean-Luc Mélechon, who ended up relegating Marine Le Pen in the background in this campaign.
4- An increasingly manifest disinterest
The polls have said it has been repeated: participation in the 2022 legislative elections could be the worst in the history of the Fifth Republic with 51 to 55% of abstainers announced according to the various surveys. The sluggish campaign never really took off, leaving an air pocket for the countless scandals and controversies at the start of the five-year term. A survey conducted by BVA for RTL, published a week before the first round, indicated that only 38% of French people followed the campaign for the legislative elections, including a tiny 12% who said they followed it “a lot” (26% “quite”, 34% “a little” and 27% “not at all”). Another unmistakable sign: only 40% of French people questioned knew the name of the MP for their constituency.
5- Fewer applicants and fewer renewals
In this context, while the “dégagisme” had swept a large part of the outgoing Assembly in 2017, these 2022 legislative elections sign the return to a certain stability, with a renewal which promises to be much less pronounced at the Palais Bourbon. 6,290 candidates are applying for these legislative elections, ie about eleven per constituency on average. They were 7,882 in 2017. The pool of candidates has thus been considerably reduced, in particular thanks to alliances (Nupes on the left, Together! for the candidates of the majority). Above all, indicates Le Monde, there are 136 outgoing deputies who have decided or have been forced not to stand again. They were 220 during the previous legislative elections.