- After the defeats, The Republicans and the Socialist Party seem to have raised their heads during the municipal elections.
- Despite the breakthrough of environmentalists, the two parties won three quarters of the municipalities and consolidate their local presence.
- But at the national level, the PS and LR always seem to be outdistanced by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.
Trompe-l'oeil victories? After the defeats, The Republicans and the Socialist Party seem to have raised their heads during the municipal elections, the second round of which ended on Sunday. The ballot, marked by an historic abstention, allowed the parties of the "old world" to prevail in three quarters of the municipalities of more than 10,000 inhabitants, according to the count of specialists. At the same time, La République en Marche and the Rassemblement National failed, to varying degrees, in their desire for local implantation.
"Those who were to be the big winners find themselves crushed like flies!" ", Says Aurélien Pradié. "This campaign marks the colossal failure of the Macronian promise to erase political cleavages, which was in reality only a bubble," added the Lot deputy and number three of the party. A way of seeing the glass half full. Because if LR and the PS consolidate their supremacy in the territories, many challenges remain to be met in the perspective of the presidential 2022.
The failure of Republicans in big cities
At the top of the Republicans, we pretend to be satisfied with the results of the municipal elections: the right now holds half of the cities in France. “The blue wave of 2014 has been confirmed. We own, with our allies 50%, cities of more than 9,000 inhabitants, which represents 15 million inhabitants, it is not nothing. And this figure is increasing in municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants, "says Gilles Platret, mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône and vice-president of the party.
The right has established itself in several medium-sized cities, such as Saint-Etienne, Mulhouse, Auxerre or Limoges. But this improvement is marred by defeats in the largest cities, in Lyon, Bordeaux, Paris, Lille, Strasbourg, and perhaps Marseille. "It's a shadow on the board," recognizes Gilles Platret. "Metropolitan voters are turning to parties that embody a form of hope: it was the PS at one time, Emmanuel Macron in 2017, and there, we can see that this electorate turned to EELV", says -he.
The Republicans also know that they will not be able to shine at the next electoral deadline without conquering this urban electorate. “It is a challenge. We must assert our environmental concern, but without the ideological substrate of the environmentalists, ”he adds.
The Socialist Party threatened by environmentalists
In the Socialist Party, we also welcome the victories, in particular those won in 14 large cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, such as in Lille, Nantes, Rennes and the news taken in Montpellier, Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis-de-la- Réunion, Nancy or Villeurbanne. “This is our first national electoral victory in eight years. It is the culmination of the work that we are carrying out to put the party back on its feet, ”greets Corinne Narassiguin, national secretary of the PS. But the ballot was also marked by a breakthrough of environmentalists - sometimes allied to socialists - in large municipalities.
And as soon as the municipal elections were finished, certain EELV executives did not fail to congratulate themselves for having supplanted the ally with the rose, and demanded leadership on the left. "Their progress is undeniable, but the first territorial network is socialist", replies Corinne Narassiguin. "I warn environmentalists in this hegemonic temptation of the old left, because in reality, no party can claim it. "
Delay to be filled in view of 2022
The two parties intend to build on these local victories to prepare for the presidential election. But the slope to climb promises to be difficult. Because despite the failure of their movement at the municipal level, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen still prance in the polls at the national level. In the last Ifop survey, published on June 22, the head of state and the patron saint of the RN would thus be neck and neck in the first round of the presidential election, at around 28% of the voting intentions (against 24% and 21.3% of the vote in 2017). They would therefore crush the right personalities tested (around 12%), and Olivier Faure, the boss of the PS (at 3%).
"There is a risk of a hiatus between the territories and national political life, with a PS and LR very established locally, constituting parties of elected officials, but hardly for the national deadlines", notes Olivier Rouquan, political scientist and researcher associated with CERSA in Paris 2. The regional elections, intermediate ballot and first step before 2022, could provide some elements of answers.
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