Jordan Bardella, the right-wing nationalist party National Rally (RN)’s candidate for Prime Minister of France, tried on Monday (1st) to approach the center-right party The Republicans (LR), which, however, refused the invitation for an alliance and called for the formation of “a provisional government” that does not include the winners of the 1st round.
In an interview with the TF1 television channel, LR leader Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts region, a hotbed of votes for the French right, said that “there are other solutions for an RN government, for example, a provisional government to rebuild the country from the dead end in which Macron has placed it.”
Bertrand approached in this way the formation of a kind of “national salvation government”, as happened in France after the Second World War.
He said that in the second round of the legislative elections, which will be held next Sunday (7), the LR will oppose both the RN and the La France Insoumise (LFI) party, the majority in the left-wing alliance New Popular Front.
Also speaking to TF1, which interviewed representatives of the four parties or blocs that will decide France’s political future, Bardella declared that he would seek support from the LR if “it has two or three seats less” than the 289 that would give the RN an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the country’s parliament.
The 28-year-old right-wing nationalist candidate insisted, however, on asking voters for an absolute majority for his party, which would then be able to “fix the country, restoring security, order and control of migration”.
The RN won the first round of the legislative elections, last Sunday (30), with 33% of the votes, but did not guarantee an absolute parliamentary majority, and now sees the possibility of an alliance between the New Popular Front and Macron’s centrist coalition, which came in second and third place, respectively.
Bardella called Macron’s call to “not give a vote to the far right” “a dishonor” and said that the left-wing front led by La France Insoumise and the Socialist Party (PS) “can still win the elections”, a hypothesis ruled out by the left and center parties themselves.
“It’s a choice between my candidacy or that of (LFI leader Jean-Luc) Mélenchon,” he said.
The current French Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, told TF1 that he is betting on a collaboration between the center-right and the more alternative left to work “project by project” in a National Assembly with a “plural” formation.
“The risk today is that the RN will have an absolute majority, which would be catastrophic for the French,” Attal alleged, highlighting that Bardella is asking for an absolute majority to have “full powers to implement his projects.”
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