After the last withdrawals and the closing of the submission of candidacies for the second round of early legislative elections on Tuesday, July 2, voters in 92 constituencies will still have to choose between three or even four candidates. While some of these three-way and four-way races should ultimately hold no surprises, for a significant number of them, absolute uncertainty reigns as to the identity of the future MP.
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Warning, danger for the nine constituencies where the National Rally (RN) is in the lead and where there have been no withdrawals. In the 14th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône, which includes part of the city of Aix-en-Provence, Macronist Anne-Laurence Petel is convinced she can turn the tide, having certainly come third but less than three points behind RN candidate Gérault Verny. And this, to the great fury of socialist Jean-David Ciot, second.
In Vienne, in Poitiers, the outgoing ecologist MP Lisa Belluco is also threatened with losing her seat to the far right, her rival from the Horizons party of former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe having refused to withdraw. While in Besançon, in Doubs, it is the outgoing Modem, Laurent Croizier, who could lose due to the maintenance of his Insoumise rival.
Read alsoFrench legislative elections: end of submission of candidacies, more than 210 withdrawals to avoid three-way races
A decisive shift for the RN?
If we put aside the triangular races involving candidates from Les Républicains, who have mostly refused the principle of blocking the RN, around thirty of the 92 constituencies concerned could swing from one party to another, probably by a few hundred votes. In around twenty of them, the National Rally could benefit from the battle between the New Popular Front (NFP) and the presidential alliance. Seats that could be crucial for the RN in order to achieve its objective of an absolute majority.
In the other direction, many of these triangular contests should allow candidates from the presidential camp or the NFP to be elected more peacefully than in a duel where the transfer of votes is by nature very random. Like the former socialist president Francois Hollandeno doubt pleased to have seen the outgoing right-wing MP Francis Dubois hold on, while he is being closely followed by the far right.