06/23/2024 – 12:33
The German Federal Chancellor said he hopes that the neighboring country will be able to curb the ultra-right wing. Research points to the leadership of Le Pen’s party. The left-wing front appears in second place, while Macron’s alliance slips. Federal Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, said this Sunday (23/06) that he is “worried” about the prospect of an ultra-right victory in the next parliamentary elections in France .
“I am worried about the elections in France,” Scholz told German public broadcaster ARD. “And I hope that parties other than the [Marine] Le Pen, to put it this way, have success in the elections. But that is for the French people to decide,” he said.
Ultraright leads polls
With just a week to go before the first round of legislative elections in France, the ultra-right has been leading the polls.
The National Reunion party (RN), led in practice by veteran Marine Le Pen, and its allies, including the president of the conservative party The Republicans (LR) Éric Ciotti, have appeared with between 35.5 and 36% of voting intentions, according to two public surveys this Sunday.
The ultra-right also appears ahead of the New Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties (27 to 29.5%), and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance (19.5 to 20%).
The RN campaign has been led by the official president of the party, Jordan Bardella, who, like Marine Le Pen, has been repeating the party’s strategy in recent years of promoting a more presentable image, in contrast to the years in which the party was led by its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his racist and anti-Semitic comments. However, critics point out that this is nothing more than a cynical “rebranding”, and accuse the RN of still being the old xenophobic and extremist party it always was.
“I want to reconcile the French and be the prime minister of all French people, without any distinction,” Bardella said in an interview with Journal du dimanche.
left front
The fear of a victory for the RN led the left-wing opposition to establish an alliance. The New Popular Front is a coalition led by socialists, ecologists, communists and the ultra-left France Unsubmissa (LFI) party, which received praise from former socialist president François Hollande.
The leader of the LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, refused to “eliminate or impose himself” as prime minister in the event of a left-wing victory in the second round of the legislative elections, on July 7.
However, the alliance has already been marked by tensions, as the LFI refused to readmit opponents of party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The excluded members say they are the target of a “purge” and accuse the former presidential candidate of a “reckoning”. Others regret that Mélenchon’s ally Adrien Quatennens remains in the party, despite being convicted of domestic violence in 2022.
Macron on the ropes
Macron’s centrist alliance, in turn, tries to establish the position of an alternative against the “extremes”, in reference to the RN and the LFI.
By distributing criticism to both the right and the left, Macron has been repeating tactics already adopted previously. Macron became president in 2017 with a centrist liberal speech, attracting voters dissatisfied with the traditional alternation between socialists and conservatives. In the 2022 re-election, he has already presented himself as the alternative to the “extremes”.
“Our country needs a third force, responsible and reasonable, capable of acting and reassuring,” said Macron’s ally and current president of the National Assembly (Lower House), Yaël Braun-Pivet, to the newspaper La Tribune.
In the polls, Macron’s popularity is in free fall, but has not reached the level recorded during the yellow vest crisis in 2018: it fell four points, to 28%, in the Ipsos institute survey for the newspaper La Tribune.
It also registered a drop in the Ifop poll for the JDD, with a drop of five points, to an approval of just 26%.
The unexpected decision of the French president to call early legislative elections after the failure of his coalition in the European elections on June 9 in the face of the ultra-right, which obtained twice as many votes as the centrists, caused a “political earthquake” with uncertain consequences, according to analysts.
Macron, in power since 2017, is facing difficulties in implementing his government program since he lost his absolute majority in the National Assembly in the June 2022 legislative elections.
He defended the dissolution of the Lower House as a necessary option to “clarify” the political landscape.
The head of state, who has a mandate until 2027, however, ruled out the possibility of resigning, regardless of the result of the legislative elections.
Jps (dpa, AFP, DW, ots)
#Scholz #expresses #concern #French #election