In the losing camp, hope is not completely dead this Sunday, April 24. “The third round begins tonight,” launched Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the announcement of Emmanuel Macron’s re-election. Coming third in the first round, the rebellious candidate (LFI), who won 22% of the vote, called on the French to “elect him Prime Minister” by voting massively for the deputies of his party during the legislative elections.
This election, which will take place on June 12 and 19, is now in the line of fire for all the defeated parties. Eliminated once again at the end of the second round of the presidential election, Marine Le Pen (RN) also urged her supporters to lead “the great electoral battle of the legislative elections”. Objective for the opposition forces: to impose on Emmanuel Macron a cohabitation for his new mandate.
An institutional brake
Since the establishment of the five-year term in October 2000, no elected president has been defeated in the legislative elections. This constitutional reform, which came to bury the seven-year term, was precisely intended to avoid the risk of cohabitation. The alignment of electoral calendars – the presidential election is now systematically followed by legislative elections – has thus contributed to minimizing the hypothesis of discordant majorities between the Elysée and the Assembly.
“When the legislative election arrives, it is still saturated by the presidential dynamic. Presidents benefit from a form of legitimism on the part of their electorate and the discouragement of voters from candidates who have lost,” explains Olivier Rouquan, political scientist and associate researcher at the Center for Studies and Research in Administrative and Political Sciences (Cersa ) at Panthéon-Assas University.
If this institutional framework minimizes the possibilities of cohabitation, two polls published on Sunday show that the French are in favor of it. According to the survey conducted by the OpinionWay institute for Europe 1 and CNews, 63% of respondents want Emmanuel Macron “to not have a majority and to be forced into cohabitation”. And they are 56% to express the same wish according to an Ipsos Sopra-Steria survey. “But it was already the case in 2017,” tempers Olivier Rouquan. At the time, nearly one in two French people (49%) hoped that the legislative elections would give “another majority in the Assembly” than that which had elected Emmanuel Macron president, according to a Kantar Sofres-OnePoint study, carried out for RTL , Le Figaro and LCI.
An essential game of alliances
To obtain a majority of deputies in the Assembly – a minimum of 289 must be gathered – the opposition parties will have to overcome many obstacles. “The Socialist Party and the Republicans have certainly collapsed in the presidential election, but they are still well established at the local level. If LFI seems to have taken the lead with voters of the moderate and radical left, this advantage is far from being consolidated locally”, estimates Jessica Sainty, teacher-researcher in political science at the University of Avignon. Aware of the stakes, the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon has already engaged in bilateral discussions with EELV, the PCF and the NPA. More open to discussion than in 2017, LFI hopes to reach an agreement before the end of April with a “shared program” by the various left-wing parties.
For the camp of Marine Le Pen, obtaining a majority would also go through an essential game of alliances. “This would require, for example, to present common candidates, credible and identified, with the Reconquest movement of Eric Zemmour. But that’s far from guaranteed. Despite its accession to the second round of the presidential election in 2017, Marine Le Pen’s party had only obtained 8 seats in the Assembly”, indicates political scientist Olivier Rouquan.
Finally, the weight of abstention in June will remain decisive, according to the two researchers. “Abstention was already strong for this presidential election, so there is a risk that it will increase further for the legislative elections which, traditionally, mobilize voters less. Mechanically, this means there will be fewer triangles. This therefore means building alliances in a large number of constituencies,” concludes Jessica Sainty. To reach the second round, the candidates must indeed collect more than 12.5% of the registered voters. However, the higher the abstention, the higher the threshold for remaining in the second round. In 2017, the first round gave rise to a vast majority of duels. Only one triangular had taken place out of 577 constituencies.
Discover the results of the second round of the 2022 presidential election by city, department and region on 20 minutes.
Source: 20minutes
