9:02 p.m., Sunday June 9. France falls into a dizzying unknown, after the presidential announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly. Since then, each day has had its share of surprises. This Friday, June 14, the left formalizes its second marriage while the right continues to scatter. Some tempted by the extreme right, others taking refuge in alliances with the presidential majority. As for the National Rally, it seems never to have been so sure of its victory…
Today’s project: the New Popular Front dreams of “rupture”
When it was necessary to urgently call a new election in 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing did not want to rush the voters, still in shock from the death of Georges Pompidou. Thus he promised “change in continuity”. Fifty years later, too bad for the shock of the dissolution and the urgency of the elections. We no longer speak of continuity, but of “rupture”. Formula chosen and brandished by the young New Popular Front (NFP), made up, among others, of the Socialist Party, La France insoumise, ecologists, and the French Communist Party.
Pensions, purchasing power, environment… Nothing will be the same again under Emmanuel Macron’s policies, swear with one voice the left-wing parties who managed to find an agreement after 72 hours of negotiations under high tension. First, we start by unraveling what has been done in recent months: pension reform, immigration law and unemployment insurance reform. Secondly, we take out the checkbook that Bruno Le Maire had started to put away by announcing the end of “Whatever it costs”: “revaluation of social minimums, autonomy allowance for young people…”. Third, we tax “the rich and the super-profits”.
And the left, quite proud of having achieved the feat of agreeing in less than a week on a common program, of boasting in front of the right which continues to fragment.
Today’s trench warfare: Ciotti, LR and the court
Is the psychodrama at Les Républicains finally coming to an end? A political office of the party meeting by video early this Friday morning “validated” the exclusion of Eric Ciotti, repudiated by his own for having made a pact with the National Rally of Jordan Bardella. This second vote, convened in order to legally strengthen the express decision of the movement, should, hope the party leaders, make it possible to definitively turn the page on Ciotti at LR. The war that is tearing the right apart also took place this Friday before the Paris judicial court, where Eric Ciotti’s lawyers challenged the legality of his exclusion from the Republicans. The legal decision, feverishly awaited by the interim management, should come around 7 p.m.
The agreement of the day: the LR-Renaissance pact in Hauts-de-Seine
The Republicans in dissent with Eric Ciotti may well cry “neither National Rally, nor Macronism”, the temptation of the alliance resists little in the face of the fear of electoral setback. In Hauts-de-Seine in particular, where an agreement was sealed between The Republicans and two Renaissance leaders. And not just any ones. The head of government Gabriel Attal himself, and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stéphane Séjourné. The first in Vanves, the second in Boulogne-Billancourt. “We have decided, to block the extremes of the right and the left, to create a republican arc,” they sounded with one voice in a press release. The tone then recalls that of Jacques Chirac, who in the 1980s theorized the famous “sanitary cordon” in the face of the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front.
This republican axis provoked some outpourings among the new Ciotti-RN allies, fueled by the revelations of the JDD on the existence of a “secret agreement” ratified by Emmanuel Macron and Gérard Larcher during a “dinner”. Information denied by the president of the upper house who assures that he had “neither secret meeting nor secret arrangement” with the tenant of the Elysée. Who’s telling the truth? Whatever. During the electoral campaign, we adopt the story that suits us. Thus the ousted president of the Republicans Eric Ciotti says he is “disgusted”. To follow suit, Marine Le Pen plans for Sunday, the deadline for submitting the lists and professes: “The publication of the lists will reveal […] the long list of unique LR/Macron candidates”…
Today’s statement: Marine Le Pen’s “government of national unity”
Since the 2017 presidential election, Marine Le Pen has changed her mind a lot. Nuclear power was “dangerous”, it is no longer so. We needed a Frexit, we now need a Europe of nations. The ecu was going to save the economy, we must ultimately stay in the euro zone… But there is one point on which his speech remained invariable: his desire to form a government of “national unity”. Campaigning in her stronghold of Pas-de-Calais this Friday, the honorary president of the frontist party therefore committed herself for the umpteenth time.
“We will bring together all French people, men and women of good will, who are aware of the catastrophic situation in our country,” she insisted into the microphone of journalists. And to assure that he has been working “for months” with Jordan Bardella on “a sort of ticket” for 2027, which the young wolf will have to prepare as head of the cohabitation government. We know the refrain: she at the Elysée, he Prime Minister in 2027. Jordan Bardella still needs to survive “Matignon’s Hell”. And before that, let him manage to settle there.
Today’s poll: the RN is in the lead
16 days before the first round of early legislative elections, the National Rally continues to lead the way in the polls. According to an Opinionway study for CNews, Europe 1, and THE JDD, published this Friday, Jordan Bardella’s party is credited with 32% of voting intentions, followed by the New Popular Front at 25%, and the presidential majority (19%). Entangled in fratricidal wars, Les Républicains (9%) and Reconquête (4%) are struggling to get off the ground.
Video of the day: the six scenarios for post-legislative elections
The replay of the 577 seats in the National Assembly will determine the political future of the country. L’Express has imagined six scenarios.
Today’s figure: the Paris Stock Exchange loses more than 3%
On the financial markets, the week ends as it began after the shock of the dissolution. Groggy, the Paris Stock Exchange fell by more than 3% this Friday. As the legislative elections approach, investors are worried about the cost of the economic programs of the National Rally and the New Popular Front, in a market already worried about the trajectory of France’s deficit. With a decline of -6.23%, this is the worst week since March 2022, just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.