LEGISLATIVE POLLS. The polls carried out on the sidelines of the 2022 presidential election were not mistaken on the essentials: Emmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen. But the institutes will have to look into the legislative elections. The first trends were unveiled this Sunday, but the exercise will prove to be complicated.
[Mis à jour le 25 avril 2022 à 14h25] The elections follow each other but may not be alike. As the presidential election ends, the legislative elections that follow, on June 12 and 19, 2022, are presented by opponents of Emmanuel Macron as a “third” round likely to impose on the re-elected Head of State a cohabitation . The “identity” bloc behind Marine Le Pen and the “popular” bloc behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon are already dreaming of a victory that would allow one or the other to become Prime Minister. If nothing is decided yet, the hypothesis according to which Emmanuel Macron could not benefit from a parliamentary majority at the end of the legislative elections is plausible.
Formal polls on voting intentions during these legislative elections are eagerly awaited, but the institutes are facing real methodological difficulties. There is not indeed a legislative election, but legislative elections. They even number 577 in reality, with an election in each constituency. Impossible to carry out polls in each one, the institutes will therefore carry out “victory wishes” at the national level, projections or calculations “by blocks” political, from the votes cast in recent weeks, but that it will have to adjust.
Macron’s wishes for victory or defeat in the legislative elections
The first question, which has already been posed to voters on April 24, is that of Emmanuel Macron’s wish for victory or defeat during these legislative elections. It can be formulated in wishes of “majority” or not for the Head of State or in wishes of “cohabitation” or not. In an Ifop poll published on the evening of the second round of the presidential election for TF1, LCI, Paris Match and Sud Radio, voters from a sample of 4,827 people registered on the electoral lists thus indicated 68% that they wanted ‘at the end of the next legislative elections, “the oppositions represent the majority of deputies in the National Assembly and impose cohabitation on Emmanuel Macron”. 32% “only” therefore want “Emmanuel Macron to benefit from a majority of deputies in the National Assembly”.
In detail, supporters of cohabitation are unsurprisingly the most numerous among voters in the first round of Marine Le Pen (91%), ahead of voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon (89%), Eric Zemmour (88 %), Yannick Jadot (68%) and Valérie Pécresse (67%). They are all the same 17% among the voters of Emmanuel Macron himself (read the complete study on the Ifop website).
A defeat of Emanuel Macron or a cohabitation mostly desired
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 of victory 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.
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 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.