LEGISLATIVE SURVEY. Will Emmanuel Macron have to deal with the opposition after the legislative elections? The latest projections do not guarantee him an absolute majority in the Assembly. Point.
On June 12 and 19, 2022, the French are called to the polls to elect the deputies who will sit in the National Assembly. This election has significant political importance: it will determine the weight of each political formation in the lower house of Parliament. Will Emmanuel Macron be able to govern with an absolute majority or will he have to deal with the opposition? Will the newly appointed government remain in place? Because this year, the left gathered in Nupes hopes to force Emmanuel Macron to cohabitation. What is the most likely scenario? The polls carried out each week on the 2022 legislative elections give some leads.
The key datum of these polls on the legislative elections, because it establishes an immediately apprehensible political balance of power, is of course that of voting intentions for the first round. However, these polls should be taken with all the necessary distance: the result they show is national and overlaps with a reality that has no real political meaning: the number of votes collected by each party is a fairly insignificant piece of data. across the country, what counts in these legislative elections is the number of seats won, the number of constituencies won. There are actually 577 different elections in this great election of the 2022 legislative elections, the most relevant survey data is therefore the final projection in number of deputies.
What does the latest poll say about voting intentions for the 2022 legislative elections?
The latest Elabe poll for BFMTV, The Express and SFR, published on Wednesday June 1, gives the New People’s Ecological and Social Union the lead in voting intentions in the 1st round, with 25%. It is a short head ahead of the presidential confederation Ensemble!, which collects 24.5% of voting intentions, while the National Rally collects 22%. For their part, the Republicans and their allies collect 12.5%, and Reconquest! 4.5%.
What are the poll projections for the 2022 legislative elections?
According to the latest Elabe poll of June 1st, the confederation Together! put in place to allow Emmanuel Macron to retain the majority in the National Assembly would win the legislative elections, but without certainty of obtaining the absolute majority of seats, fixed at 289 elected. LREM, the MoDem, Horizons, as well as the other allied parties would win between 245 and 315 seats. Note that the polling institute is betting on a push from the left at the Bourbon Palace which, thanks to the Nupes coalition, could have 155 to 180 deputies. The Republicans and the UDI would limit the damage with 40 to 65 elected officials, while the RN would have between 35 and 65.
*The number of seats corresponds to the average between the low projection and the high projection made by the polling institute.
What participation rate do the polls predict?
An Opinion Way survey for The echoes, dated Wednesday June 1, estimates that only 45 to 47% of those polled are sure to vote in the first round of the legislative elections on June 12. Interest in these legislative elections is particularly low among women (45%) and among working classes (44%). It is the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon who gives the most interest in this election (66%), according to this same Opinion Way poll.
Do the French want cohabitation?
According to an Ifop-Fiducial poll for LCI published on Tuesday May 31, 63% of French people want to see cohabitation at the end of the 2022 legislative elections. This means that they want the opposition parties to obtain an absolute majority in the Assembly, which would force Emmanuel Macron to choose a new Prime Minister from an opposing political party. This trend was already strong on the evening of the second round of the presidential election: in an Ifop poll for TFI, LCI, Paris Match and Sud Radio, 68% of voters questioned wanted that at the end of the legislative elections, “the oppositions represent the majority deputies to the National Assembly and impose cohabitation on Emmanuel Macron”.
Difficult to produce reliable polls for the legislative elections
Please note: the votes for the legislative elections will be very different from those cast for this presidential election. Other components structure this vote: the weight of the parties established in the territories, the political personalities appreciated locally, the political rapprochements at the level of the constituencies, and the method of voting, majority in two rounds. All this makes the job of pollsters difficult. But if it is impossible to make precise projections, certain elements must be taken into account to measure the balance of power. In the 566 metropolitan and overseas constituencies (excluding the constituencies of French nationals living abroad), Emmanuel Macron came out on top, in the first round of the presidential election, in 256. Marine Le Pen in 206, Jean -Luc Mélenchon in 104, Valérie Pécresse in… none. But remember that in 2017, Marine Le Pen managed to lead the first round of the presidential election in 216 constituencies; the far-right party had only managed to elect 9 deputies.
A desired defeat of Emanuel Macron?
Two other surveys also lean very clearly towards cohabitation for this second five-year term of Emmanuel Macron. The first one, conducted by OpinionWay for Cnews and Europe 1, indicates that 63% of those polled prefer that the Head of State “does not have a majority and is forced to cohabit”, against 35% who want him “to have a majority in the National Assembly and can pursue its policy”. The detailed figures corroborate the Ifop survey: 95% of voters for Marine Le Pen, 84% of those for Eric Zemmour, 77% of voters for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 63% of those for Yannick Jadot and 55% of those of Valérie Pécresse prefer to see Macron fail in the June legislative elections. OpinionWay also polled its sample on the desired cohabitation Prime Minister: 46% would favor Marine Le Pen and 44% for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, while only 8% would prefer Valérie Pécresse.
Last survey of its kind published on the evening of the second round: a Ipsos Sopra-Steria survey for France TV, Le Parisien and Radio France, is more measured. But the majority (56%) of respondents also answer that they want Emmanuel Macron to lose the legislative elections, against 24% who prefer a victory to “avoid cohabitation” and 20% who want it “to apply his program”. The trends remain the same, with a few deviations, with 87% of Marine Le Pen voters in favor of a defeat, 84% of those of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 80% of those of Eric Zemmour, 49% of those of Yannick Jadot and 40% of those of Valérie Pécresse. Note: 57% of those questioned say they are in favor, during the legislative elections, of an alliance of left-wing parties (LFI, EELV, PCF and PS), including 93% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon voters and 85% from those of Yannick Jadot.
Wishes also expressed by political party in the legislative elections
The same poll by Ipsos Sopra Steria also asks the question of the legislative elections in a slightly different way by asking respondents if they want parties to emerge “strengthened” or “weakened” from the elections. A question that is still far from a voting intention, but comes slightly closer. In this little game, 39% say they would like to see La France Insoumise “reinforced” at the end of the June election against 29% who would prefer it “weakened”, a figure comparable to that of the National Rally with 38% (against 36% ).
Behind, the balance is systematically reversed: 36% want to see Europe-Ecologie Les Verts “weakened” (against 29% “strengthened”), 38% for the Republic on the Move (against 26%), 40% for the Communist Party (against 16%), 44% for the Reconquest party! of Eric Zemmour (against 20%) and finally 47% for the Socialist Party (against 18%) tied with Les Républicains (against 15% “reinforced”). Note that a quarter to a third of respondents answer “neither one nor the other” the question.