For these legislative elections, “building a barrier” is no longer obvious. Despite numerous withdrawals, the legacy of April 2002 sometimes seems distant when a few diehards, in the majority, brush aside the idea of withdrawing from a three-way race favourable to the National Rally. There are, of course, the formal instructions of the parties: like this Horizons aspirant, Graig Monetti who, by virtue of the words of Édouard Philippe (“No vote should be cast for the RN candidates or those of LFI”), is holding on in the Alpes-Maritimes as well as in Essonne against an Insoumis.
There are also these Renaissance deputies, who were nevertheless invited to withdraw in the event that “maintaining third place would have led to the election of a National Rally deputy” – according to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal – who will still seek a seat. This is the case of Anne Laure Petel, outgoing candidate from Bouches-du-Rhône, who confirms her retention, behind a candidate from the extreme right and the Socialist Party. The Republican front has ceased to be a reflex.
“If I withdraw, I offer 10,000 potential votes to the RN”
But the situation, in certain constituencies, sometimes responds to other logics. And here is where a paradox arises: in the face of the National Rally, maintaining a third candidacy can act as a barrier. “The fewer three-way races there are, the less the National Rally is favored,” summarizes Mathieu Gallard, research director at the Ipsos Institute. But there are indeed cases where three-way races favor the RN.” A question, above all, of transferring votes.
“In our studies testing the second rounds between the New Popular Front and the RN, we see that Ensemble voters could massively abstain; those who would vote would favor the left a little more than the far right. But this electorate is not the same everywhere, he specifies. In more dynamic places, like the northwest of the country, we can imagine that it would shift more towards left-wing candidates. In the south of France faced with the challenges of immigration, or in the deindustrialized areas of the North, it is more right-wing,” continues Mathieu Gallard.
In Macronie, some are therefore trying to give their support the appearance of a republican front. This is the case of Loïc Signor, candidate in Val-de-Marne, who came in third place last Sunday behind Louis Boyard (LFI) and Arnaud Barbotin (LR/RN Alliance). “I fear that my voters will block Boyard by voting for the far-right candidate,” he told L’Express. “And it is less dangerous to have Insoumis without a majority in the Assembly, rather than a far-right candidate who would allow them to obtain an absolute majority.” On X, the third even claimed that in the event of withdrawal, he would offer “10,000 potential votes to the National Rally”, all the votes he obtained.
“The third-placed Macronists who refuse to withdraw for LFI are more like Hitler than the Popular Front,” Mathilde Panot heavily criticized, on camera. In private, the rebellious leadership wants to be much more nuanced. “It is not always in our interest to push for the withdrawal of the Macronist candidate, at the risk of provoking the formation of an anti-LFI front. With Boyard, for example, it freezes the electorate, analyzes a manager. In the case where we are in the lead, the RN second and the Macronist third, we have a strong chance of winning.” In the central bloc, a candidate who came third and who maintains his candidacy against LFI and the RN wants to be lucid: “I believe that withdrawing will bring more votes to the RN than to the Insoumis.”
“This keeps voters at home”
Can withdrawals be poisoned chalices? Less than a thousand votes separate Gérald Darmanin from Bastien Verbrugghe, the National Rally candidate. “Because I believe that the far right is the antithesis of these values, I want to call on you here and unambiguously not to vote [pour le RN]”, urged in a press release the Mélenchonist candidate Leslie Mortreux, who, on the eve of the deadline, withdrew her candidacy. “I suspect them of withdrawing the candidate to harm Darmanin,” snarled a minister. And added: “There are plenty of constituencies where we should not be happy that the left is withdrawing.”
Will François Hollande say thank you to his best enemies, Les Républicains? In Corrèze, the former President of the Republic is in a favorable position, leading the three-way race between Maïtey Pouget (RN) and Francis Dubois (LR). The latter has held on. “We will be present in the second round because we are the only right-wing party capable of beating Francis Hollande, the candidate of the New Popular Front,” he argued on X, estimating that the former head of state no longer had any reserves of votes.
“If Francis Dubois withdraws, 3/4 of his voters will go to the National Rally,” believes a right-wing bigwig. An intuition confirmed, according to an Odoxa-Backbone study for Le Figaroindicating that LR supporters would fall back in the majority (48%) on an RN candidate in a duel against the left-wing alliance. “Remaining is sometimes the best barrier to the extremes, we keep voters in the fold,” said the same source. On social media, a few hours before the deadline for submitting applications, Éric Ciotti called on the outgoing LR MP to withdraw, in vain. “We must call for a vote for the candidate of the national unity coalition, the only one who can send François Hollande into retirement.” To each his own barrier.
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