THE PEN. The MP for Pas-de-Calais has a chance of being re-elected in the first round of the legislative elections according to a poll despite a short and difficult campaign. Marine Le Pen hopes to see a hundred RN candidates elected, but the hypothesis seems unlikely.
[Mis à jour le 10 juin 2022 à 15h40] Last day of campaigning for Marine Le Pen before the first round of legislative elections this Sunday. After a quick tour of France, it is in Hénin-Beaumont, in her stronghold of the 11th district of Pas-de-Calais that the deputy candidate for her re-election makes a stopover. In the town, Marine Le Pen can display a serene face since according to a study byIfop-Fiducial for LCI published on June 8, a victory in the first round is possible with 51% of the voting intentions, when its rivals from Nupes and Ensemble would only collect 30% and 12% of the votes. Sunday’s ballot has yet to confirm these predictions.
For the last hours of her legislative campaign which will have been short and wobbly in the eyes of some, the leader of the National Rally will repeat her call for the mobilization of voters, in her constituency but also on a national scale. Marine Le Pen knows the decisive abstention in the legislative polls and the strong abstention announced – more than 50% according to studies – does not play in favor of the RN already behind the Nupes and the presidential majority in the polls. The one who assures the French that she can win the seats of deputy in the 150 constituencies in which she came first in the presidential election could only see 25 to 50 elected RNs in the Assembly at the end of the ballot according to the last Elabe poll for BFMTV and L’Express. To try to counter the predictions, the candidate still invited voters to go to the polling stations on Sunday, this morning on the set of BFMTV-RMCrenewing his formula: “I fight for the French but they have to help me to help them.”
Marine Le Pen is however delighted to see that the absolute majority has not yet been won by Emmanuel Macron according to the polls and that “the match is not over”. But she refuses to leave the place of the first opposition group and even less the majority to Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the left coalition. Also, she presents herself as “the only opposition to Macron” and multiplies the pikes thrown at her opponents. Faced with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s ambition to settle in Matignon, she judged that the Insoumis “has zero chance of being Prime Minister” and that “the media pretended to believe his lie”. As for the executive, it is on its balance sheet, the proposed measures and recent events such as the debacle at the Stade de France that Marine Le Pen attacks. She denounced the “masquerade” which she says is behind the promise of inflation aid, and accused the government of “destroying evidence by inaction” over the failure to keep CCTV footage of the Stade de France.
Marine Le Pen, legislative candidate?
If she took the time to announce it, Marine Le Pen is officially a candidate in the legislative elections and is seeking a second term in the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais, that of her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont. It was first Jordan Berdella who affirmed the candidacy of the leader of the National Rally during a trip to Fréjus on April 28. A few days later, the confirmation came from the main interested party.
Marine Le Pen, who put forward the argument of the grassroots campaign and proximity to the French during the presidential campaign, could not give up her role as MP for Pas-de-Calais. Above all, after her defeat in the presidential election, she could not deprive herself of the last means at her disposal to weigh in national politics: a seat and an RN group in the National Assembly. The politician therefore hopes to obtain a sufficiently powerful group within the hemicycle to block certain reforms by Emmanuel Macron. At a meeting in Hénin-Beaumont on June 5, Marine Le Pen dangled the possibility of obtaining more than a hundred RN deputies: “Potentially, if all our voters come to defend our ideas, we will be able to send between 100 and 150 deputies to the next assembly”. A scenario which is based on the good results of the presidential candidate, “we gathered 50% of the voices in more than 150 constituencies and 55% of the votes in more than 90 constituencies”. Great ambitions which have however been revised downwards because at the end of the presidential election Marine Le Pen was aiming for nothing less than a majority in the National Assembly, a scenario difficult to imagine by leading the race alone and in the current context. of tripartism between the alliance of the left, the presidential majority and the extreme right.
Did Marine Le Pen miss her campaign?
Although her candidacy for the legislative elections was formalized only a few days after the presidential election, Marine Le Pen only started her campaign two weeks before the first round of the legislative elections and her trips were mostly organized in the last days preceding the ballot: in the Loiret on June 7, in Perpignan on the 8th or even in the Hérault on the 9th. The deputy of course made a stop in her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont where she is running. She even gave her only campaign meeting there on June 5 before spending the last day of the campaign there on Friday June 10. Yet in the constituency the candidates of the presidential majority, Alexandrine Pintus, and of Nupes, Marine Tondelier, pointed to the absence of Marine Le Pen on the ground, accusing her of speaking “always at the national level” according to France info.
The absence of Marine Le Pen was also noticed nationally during the first weeks of the legislative campaign. A fifteen-day break taken after the presidential election but which wasted precious time for the candidate and which above all broke the dynamic around RN and its leader. A momentum which would however have been welcome for the legislative elections. Back in the political arena, Marine Le Pen did not shine by her ambition but rather by her resigned, almost defeatist air. The deputy first set the objectives of simply forming a parliamentary group of 15 elected representatives before raising the bar to “at least 60 deputies” sitting in the National Assembly. It was not until the last hours of the campaign to see the combative Marine Le Pen hammering the possibility for the RN to have 150 deputies, on the condition of the mobilization of voters as during the presidential election.
This campaign, of which we only remember the last week, from the only meeting of Marine Le Pen, given on June 5 in Hénin-Beaumont, was also marked by the falsely offensive position of the deputy of Pas-de-Calais. The candidate chained attacks against her main rivals: Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of Nupes, and Emmanuel Macron. Excessive criticism of their balance sheet, their measurement and their topicality, the declaration on the forces of order of the Insoumis or the disaster of the Stade de France for the Head of State, which took precedence over the defense of his own ideas. A strategic mistake? This behavior may have given the impression of a candidate on the defensive and in a hurry to try to convince or regain the favor of the voters.
What is Marine Le Pen’s program for the legislative elections?
Marine Le Pen takes the same line as that defended during the presidential campaign. The proposals and subjects that she and the other candidates of the RN intend to bring to the National Assembly are modeled on the presidential program of the far right. And, as during the presidential campaign, one of the subjects that comes up most often a few days before the vote in the legislative elections is purchasing power, at the heart of the news when inflation has climbed by five points, for which Marine Le Pen defends a reduction or even an abolition of VAT and shoots down the temporary aid and the energy or food checks put in place by the Head of State. A law for the purchasing power must precisely be voted at the end of June at the end of the legislative according to the announcements of the government. Retirement is also a point of friction between the LREM group and allies and that of the RN because if the first defends the reform of the pension and the postponement of the age to 64 or 65 years, the second militates for a progressive system allowing the retirement between 60 and 62 for long careers and later depending on the age of entry into working life.
What result can Marine Le Pen hope to have in the legislative elections?
In Hénin-Beaumont and in the 11th district of Pas-de-Calais, Marine Le Pen is on conquered ground. The candidate is confident about her potential victory in the legislative elections, especially since the results of the presidential election and the polls are favorable to her. In the first round of the presidential election, Marine Le Pen obtained 45.1% of the vote with 25 points ahead of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and 28 over Emmanuel Macron in his constituency. She also won in the second round with 63.4% of the vote.
Sunday June 12, Marine Le Pen could win the legislative elections in the first round according to the results of the Ifop-Fiducial survey for LCI published on June 6. The survey gives the RN candidate largely in the lead with 51% of the votes, i.e. an absolute majority, in the first round against 30% for the Nupes candidate, Marine Tondelier, and 12% for that of the presidential majority, Alexandrine Pintus. But to regain her seat as a deputy in the first round, Marine Le Pen must also obtain 25% of the votes of voters registered on the electoral lists, a detail which can be complicated by a high abstention rate.
According to Ifop, “given the balance of power measured in the first round, the hypothesis of a second round seems unlikely at this stage” in the 11th district of Pas-de-Calais. The institute nevertheless tested the hypothesis and once again gave the RN candidate the lead ahead of these opponents from Nupes (56% against 44%) and the presidential majority (63% against 37%).