A few hours before the silence: at midnight, this Friday evening, the campaign for the legislative elections will officially end. Political leaders will take advantage of this last day to multiply their speeches before holding their breath in the face of a historic vote, Sunday July 7 for the second round. Will the extreme right obtain an absolute majority for the first time in France? Will the withdrawal strategy of its opponents block its path? Will the presidential camp save the day? At this stage of the campaign, the polls predict a relative majority for the RN and its allies.
Key information to remember
⇒ Emmanuel Macron could endorse “the alliance of all the rights”, according to Jean-Luc Mélenchon
⇒ Jean-Luc Mélenchon called on François Ruffin not to “settle his scores” in the light of “dangerous legislative elections”
⇒ An activist for Thomas Mesnier, spokesperson for Horizons in the running in Charente, was attacked while putting up posters
Macron could endorse “the alliance of all the rights”, according to Mélenchon
Emmanuel Macron could be forced to endorse “the alliance of all the rights” if there is no absolute majority in the Assembly at the end of the legislative elections, because “his seat” as president is at stake, said the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon on TF1 on Thursday. If no clear majority emerges after the second round on Sunday evening, “what will emerge is the alliance of all the rights”, predicted the Insoumis on TF1, who is arguing for his camp to obtain “an absolute majority”.
This alliance, which would be composed of “Macronists, LR and RN”, would be “possible because they have already voted together a lot in the National Assembly”, he added, taking the example of “the immigration law”. “So they are used to doing things together and their program is quite similar”, affirmed Jean-Luc Mélenchon. According to the leader of the Insoumis, Emmanuel Macron “will accept the alliance of all the rights because his seat is at stake”. Because “if there is no majority, the solution to get out of the impasse is for him to leave. Which is quite normal. He is the one responsible”, he argued.
Without a majority, “it is not true that the country would be ungovernable. It is only ungovernable if Mr. Macron decides that he must remain so,” insisted Jean-Luc Mélenchon, evoking the precedent of President Alexandre Millerand who was forced to resign in 1924 after the advent of the left-wing cartel in the legislative elections. “We can win,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon also hammered home on behalf of the left-wing alliance of the New Popular Front, before warning “that Mrs. (Marine) Le Pen can also win.”
Mélenchon deplores Ruffin’s remarks
François Ruffin, who is in an unfavourable position in the Somme, has made a firm break with Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Thursday. On Thursday morning, François Ruffin announced on RTL that he would not sit with La France Insoumise if he were re-elected. “We have had three tough weeks because we have a ball and chain,” he told AFP, before sighing: “You heard him. It’s Mélenchon, Mélenchon, Mélenchon, Mélenchon as an obstacle to the vote.” “In lands like here, in working-class lands, it’s blocking things,” he said, his re-election far from being a given, with 33.92% of the vote compared to 40.69% for his opponent from the National Rally.
During a press conference, on the sidelines of a trip to support the Abbeville garbage collectors who have been on strike since Friday against the deterioration of their pay conditions, François Ruffin said that he “hoped that the divorce would be amicable and that it would not happen with the noise of dishes”. “Such a dangerous election is not the time to settle personal scores, and he in particular is putting himself in danger”, replied Jean-Luc Mélenchon on TF1 in the evening.
“When he says ‘I am leaving the Insoumis’ even though he is in a constituency that was allocated to the Insoumis […] “People who vote no longer know why they vote,” he argued; before concluding: “There is a rule of political weather, when the wind blows hard, it also carries away the weather vanes.”
Charente: an activist of the Horizons candidate, Thomas Mesnier, attacked
A member of the campaign team of Thomas Mesnier, spokesperson for Horizons running in the 1st constituency of Charente, was attacked while he was putting up posters before the first round of the legislative elections, the candidate announced on Thursday. “A young activist from my team was the victim of a violent attack last Friday. He filed a complaint. The police are investigating and justice will be done,” Thomas Mesnier reported on Facebook, while also expressing his support for Prisca Thévenot, the government spokesperson who was attacked with her campaign team on Wednesday evening in Hauts-de-Seine.
Asked by the daily newspaper The Free CharenteThomas Mesnier indicates that the victim, aged around twenty, had his phone stolen before being subjected to “homophobic” insults and then receiving blows for which a doctor prescribed him 20 days of ITT. The Horizons candidate faces the outgoing MP René Pilato (LFI/NFP) and Marion Latus (RN) in the second round on Sunday, in a constituency where he was elected MP in 2017. He was re-elected in 2022 but this close result was invalidated and René Pilato won in a by-election in 2023.
Around thirty solidarity associations “call for a vote” against the RN
The most important solidarity associations, including Médecins du Monde, the Abbé Pierre Foundation and Emmaüs, called on Thursday “to vote massively in the second round of the legislative elections” to oppose the National Rally, whose programme would, according to them, cause “millions of victims”.
“The actions we carry out with vulnerable groups are now under threat. While our associations advocate the values of fraternity and universality of rights, the far-right’s program is based on the principle of national preference,” declared the Alerte collective in a collective statement. This brings together 34 associations, including the Abbé Pierre Foundation, Médecins du Monde, Cimade, France Terre d’asile, the Human Rights League, Secours Catholique, Action Against Hunger, ATD Quart Monde, Emmaüs, the Federation of Solidarity Actors, the Salvation Army, and Uniopss, among others.
Nadine Morano will vote left
LR MEP Nadine Morano will vote for the miscellaneous left Dominique Potier in the 5th constituency of Meurthe-et-Moselle on Sunday because she refuses to give her vote to Louis-Joseph Pecher, accused of anti-Semitism, she explained to AFP on Thursday. “I think that an anti-Semitic candidate should not receive my support,” declared the former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy, marked on the right, confirming information from the Republican LorraineShe explained that she was “voting against” Louis-Joseph Pecher and therefore for the outgoing left-wing MP Dominique Potier.