LEGISLATIVE SURVEY. During the legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron and his allies will try to retain the majority in the National Assembly. Will the head of state be faced with cohabitation? Update on the polls.
[Mise à jour le 6 mai à 12h50] The legislative elections next June will be decisive for the three “blocks” which tend to structure the French political landscape. Faced with the outgoing majority driven by the re-election of Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen’s RN and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s National Popular Social and Ecological Union intend to win this “third round” of the legislative elections in order to impose cohabitation on the President. According to a survey conducted by Elaba for The echoes and Classic Radio published Thursday, May 5, 2022, Emmanuel Macron only enjoys the confidence of 34% of French people to effectively face the problems facing the country. There is thus a drop in confidence: 58% of French people who no longer trust him, which represents an increase of 3 points. Its confidence rating is down 4 points since April and 6 points over two months. In all, he has recorded a drop of 11 points since the measurement carried out for the first month of his first mandate, in May 2017 (45%).
Which personality do recent polls give the most capable of embodying the opposition?
At the same time, other political figures seem to federate more. According to the same Elabe poll, it is the former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who enjoys the highest popularity rating, with a positive image among 48% of respondents. Jean-Luc Mélenchon comes second. With 35%, the political leader of the Insoumis has progressed by 7 points in terms of positive image. It is particularly with left-wing voters and environmentalists that the former presidential candidate is essential, leading the dance of favorite political figures with an image deemed positive by 72% of respondents. This upward trend was already visible in the survey carried out by Elabe for BFM TV and The Express and released on Wednesday, May 4. It revealed that two opposition figures stood out for best embodying the counter-power to the President of the Republic in the eyes of the French. 37% of those questioned considered that Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the union of the left (LFI, EELV, PS, PCF) best embodied the opposition to Emmanuel Macron, ahead of Marine Le Pen (33%).
In the detail of this survey carried out by Elabe for BFM TV and The Express and published on Wednesday May 4, the leader of insubordinate France is acclaimed by 77% of left-wing sympathizers. Those close to Reconquête or the National Rally, they place their trust in Marine Le Pen up to 77%. The one who sees himself as “Prime Minister” at the end of the legislative elections, is also seen as the most credible political personality to oppose Emmanuel Macron for 52% of supporters of the Republic on the march.
What does the latest survey on voting intentions say about the 2022 legislative elections?
Beyond the simple image of politicians, polling institutes are conducting surveys on voting intentions in the first round of legislative elections (June 12). For the time being, only the Harris Interactive institute establishes polls on voting intentions at regular intervals. The last, published Tuesday, May 3, 2022 and established with 2044 people registered on the electoral lists, offers an interesting reading grid with regard to the current political game. Even if the hypotheses tested do not seem, for the time being, to correspond to what will be offered to voters on June 12 and 19. Indeed, the first configuration submits individual candidacies from each party, left and right. In this case, LREM would come first (24%), ahead of the RN (23%) and rebellious France (19%). However, LFI has sealed a union with EELV and the PCF. A scenario that has not been properly tested by Harris Intercative.
Indeed, the second configuration proposed is that of an alliance of the left (LFI, EELV, PCF, PS), certainly quasi-acted, which would face an alliance LREM / MoDem / Horizons / LR and an agreement RN / R!/DLF. If the first group seems to be in a very good position to be present united in the 1st round, no discussion between LREM and LR has been initiated and is not envisaged by the management of the second, while the National Rally refutes any alliance with the from Eric Zemmour. If these scenarios were to be established, however, the united left would be neck and neck with LREM / LR (33% each), ahead of the far right (30%).
To obtain the photograph that is probably closest to the reality of the current political context, it is better to add up the individual scores of the political parties. Thus, the PCF / EELV / PCF union would collect 28% of the vote, against 24% for LREM, 23% for the RN and only 8% for Les Républicains. These are only projections at a given time and do not in any way predict the final results. Furthermore, the study relates only to voting intentions in the first round of legislative elections. No data on the 2nd round is mentioned.
What are the poll projections for the 2022 legislative elections?
In this same poll published on May 5, 2022, Harris Interactive made projections on the possible composition of the National Assembly after the legislative elections. Without giving any quantified results on the voting intentions of June 19, the polling institute estimates that La République en Marche and its allies, namely the MoDem and Horizon, could win between 338 and 378 seats, i.e. an absolute majority. . The left, for its part, is not sure to be a winner in the event of a union. Even with the alliance recently concluded, a mattress of 70 deputies could be won, but with an estimated ceiling of 90. For its part, the extreme right could have between 65 and 95 seats in the event of a candidacy in solitary of the RN, against between 110 and 140 if an alliance with Debout la France and Reconquête were to be sealed. As for the Republicans, exit the hundred deputies at the Bourbon Palace: only 35 to 65 seats could be kept.
What do the polls say about Macron’s wishes for victory or defeat in the legislative elections?
Before the Harris poll, questions had been asked about the legislative elections to voters, on the sidelines of the second round of the presidential election. Several institutes have tried to gauge the “wishes for victory” or “defeat” for Emmanuel Macron in these legislative elections, but also the wishes for “majority” or even “cohabitation” for the Head of State. 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 surveyed 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 also expressed 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 want to see La France Insoumise “reinforced” after the election next June 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.