The classic right has beaten Le Pen at the regional …

From Paris

They lost the ballot boxes the right won, the socialists resisted and the extreme right of Marine Le Pen and the presidential party of Emmanuel Macron collapsed, The Republic on the Move (LRM). The first round of the French regional elections which took place this Sunday, June 20 reiterated the tendency for the vacuum of the last consultations: an unsuccessful abstention sealed the election with a range that went from 66.1% to 68.6%. The percentages are much higher than the abstention records of 2010 (53.67%), 2011 (55.68% at the time were called cantonal) and 2015 (50%). 47 million voters were summoned to renew the mandates of regions and departments in an election that respected the tradition of sanctioning the ruling party, in this case LRM, LA República en Marcha of President Emmanuel Macron and this, at the same time, has softened the impact of the French far right and its RN party, the Regroupamiento Nacional, led by presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. However, it was not the lukewarm Socialist Party or the left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon (France Insoumise) which slowed down the momentum in Le Pen but the classic French right represented by LR (Les Républicains). The surprise is all the more eloquent as editorial speculation and polls had pushed the far right through the roof and the right and the Socialists below the waterline. The opposite has happened. Both came out restored.

The estimates that circulated after the consultation completely change the previous configuration: With a percentage that fluctuates between 27% and 29.5%, LR is today the most voted force in the country, well above the far right and its 19.1%. Marine Le Pen’s party is even well below the historic 27.7% obtained in the 2015 regional, when the polls emerged as the leading party in France. Socialist lists appear in third position with around 17% and those of the presidential party in fourth with just over 11%. The first lesson of this vote points to a strengthening or maintenance of traditional political forces, that is to say the right wing of the Republicans and the Socialist Party. The candidates supported by LR largely won in the Hauts de France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy was the option with the highest number of votes in Provence-Alpes-Côte d ‘Azure, where the polls before the first round showed the far right as the favorite. The surprise is huge because the far-right candidates have suffered many setbacks in regions or departments where they were considered winners. The electoral bump did not happen and it changes all prospects for the presidential elections of 2022.

Predictions failed

Polls and analysts have missed it all. Election roulette fell into another number very different from the single bet: the far right of the National Regroupement did not eat the ballot box, the right LR obtained excellent results and the left, as a whole, did not. also not sunk as calculated. Next Sunday will be held the second round of what constitutes the last elections before the presidential consultation of 2022. A year and a half of health, economic and social crisis precipitated the abstention and at the same time corrected the upward trend of the Penist party. The failure of Marine Le Pen is categorical. For her, these elections were like the certificate that her moderation strategy would lead her to garner votes well beyond her captive electorate and that with her, she was more than ever prepared for a new presidential election. It would no longer be the France of a few small towns scattered throughout the country or that of the small towns in which the RN governs, but the whole of France of the regions which would be inclined towards it. It didn’t become real. That France voted for the right and the socialists.

Around 2022

The victory of the right wing is not anecdotal because behind these good results emerge strong figures (Xavier Bertrand, Laurent Wauquiez, Valérie Pécresse) who could perfectly place themselves at the top in 2022.. The reiteration of the 2017 duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election next year is now one more probability and not a certainty. Emmanuel Macron’s only threatening rival is no longer Marine Le Pen. For socialists, the outlook is not dire either. They are the third party, but the difference with the silverfish is much smaller than in previous years (19% for the RN, 17% for the PS). If this dynamic is maintained or is accentuated in the coming months, the return of parties with a tradition of government and presidency (PS and LR) removes the foundations of the Macronist strategy. The head of state had made a sort of “secret campaign” with the fixed idea that in 2022, his rival would be Le Pen.

Neither Macron nor Le Pen came out of the polls strengthened, on the contrary. It is the right and the Socialists, whose lists are the most voted in the 5 regions under his administration, who unexpectedly consolidate his political credit. This brings another denial: politics exist, the old parties persist, left and right want to say something and everything is not at stake, as Macron presented in 2016, between a liberal, pro-European and globalizing center. and a couple of populist forces. The old enemies have returned to the table. Le Pen and Macron are no longer alone at the banquet.