Paris (AFP)

Against a background of massive abstention, left and right shared six seats on Sunday evening, during the second round of partial legislative elections for which LREM had failed to qualify as candidates.

At the end of this election, a consequence of the municipal elections and the appointment of a new government in July, the LR benches of the Assembly will be filled with an additional deputy thanks to the claimed victory of Philippe Benassaya in the Yvelines.

The head office was at LREM since 2017.

The right is smiling, especially since its domination of the Senate has been consolidated, following the partial renewal of the upper assembly this Sunday.

In the other constituencies, the political colors of the winners are the same as at the start of the quinquennium.

Consequence of the traditional disaffection for the partial and the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic: the abstention was very strong.

She had touched the 87% during the first round in Val-de-Marne.

Sunday, it fluctuated between 81 and 84% in constituencies outside Ile-de-France.

Maine-et-Loire, Seine-Maritime, Reunion, Haut-Rhin, Val-de-Marne and Yvelines, the voters had to decide between twelve candidates from the RN to the environmentalists, but without LREM.

The presidential party, which only challenged one seat, was eliminated in the first round in the constituencies where it stood, ie half.

The "marchers" had already lost the 11th district of Yvelines, where Nadia Hai, appointed Minister for the City, had resigned.

She thus voluntarily provoked a by-election to prevent her deputy, indicted for drug trafficking, from sitting.

In this constituency, which was that of the former socialist candidate in the 2017 presidential election, Benoît Hamon, the right claimed the victory of the mayor of Bois d'Arcy (LR) Philippe Benassaya with about two thirds of the votes against to the first deputy mayor of Trappes (Génération.s), Sandrine Grandgambe.

In Colmar and Neuf-Brisach, in a constituency traditionally anchored to the right, the LR candidate Yves Hemedinger, who had come quite far ahead in the first round, easily won against the environmentalist Frédéric Hilbert (63.67% against 36.33%).

He succeeds Eric Straumann (LR) who became mayor of Colmar, while his deputy Brigitte Klinkert entered the government as minister delegate in charge of integration.

- No elected EELV -

Another duel between the right and the ecologists took place in the third district of Maine-et-Loire.

With 303 votes of difference in the first round, the candidate (EELV) of union of the left Daphné Raveneau could hope to make doubt the candidate LR Anne-Laure Blin.

But the right, which was divided in these cantons north of Saumur, did not let go of this deputy seat it has held since the beginning of the Fifth Republic.

Ms. Blin won with 61.1% against a backdrop of starving participation (16%).

In the ninth district of Val-de-Marne, the third and last district where EELV presented a candidate, the fratricidal wars on the left turned to the advantage of the PS candidate Isabelle Santiago, whose camp claimed the election with about 58 % of votes, against Sandra Regol, number 2 of EELV.

"Some wanted to make a national test on the left on the occasion of this partial. They find this evening in the election of a socialist deputy their answer", tackled the former PS deputy, Luc Carvounas who preferred the Alfortville town hall in the constituency.

In the 5th district of Seine-Maritime, the socialist candidate Gérard Leseul was elected in the second round, gathering 71.61% of the votes against RN Jean-Cyril Montier (28.39%).

Mr. Leseul succeeds Christophe Bouillon (PS), elected mayor of Barentin in May.

In the second constituency of Réunion, Karine Lebon, at the head of a union list of the left, largely won (71.96%) over her opponent supported by the right, Audrey Fontaine (28.04 %).

Karine Lebon was supported by Huguette Bello, who resigned from the National Assembly after her election as mayor of Saint-Paul.

In five of the six constituencies, the former holders of the seat of deputy preferred to occupy a chair of mayor, even in a small town, rather than keep their seat at the Palais Bourbon.

And their substitutes did not wish to take over, twenty months before the legislative elections of 2022.

© 2020 AFP