• Pandemic France lifts the curfew and allows to go out without a mask

Surprise and of the fat in the regional elections of France:

the right has risen, the left still lives and the extreme right that started as a favorite has left its teeth

in the fight. Of course, it is confirmed that Emmanuel Macron has not known how to organize a match. According to an Elabe poll for BFMTV, Los Republicanos (LR, the party that belongs to the PPE) would have collected 24% of the votes, National Meeting (RN, far right) 19%, the veteran Socialist Party (PS) an unexpected 16 % that places it ahead of Ecologists (13%).

La República en Marcha (LREM), the presidential formation would hardly exceed 10%.

We will have to wait for the results to be confirmed and

the record abstention (66%) should be taken into account

. But the trends seem clear: Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, who lead the polls for the presidential elections, are going to have to compete with a right-wing candidate ... if they agree on who will be their candidate.

Since last night, Xavier Bertrand, acting president of Hauts de France, the region that stretches from the north of Paris to Belgium, with its capital in Lille, has taken a giant step forward.

He had said that if he was not re-elected he would go home

. Well, his 44% gives him the certainty that what will be next Sunday even if the left, which presented a single list here, does not withdraw (18%). Bertrand above all has pulverized the extreme right that would have remained at 24.4%. The pro-Macron list would not have reached the 10% needed to take part in the second round.

A slap in the face for Macron who was born in this region (Amiens) and votes here (Le Touquet).

The good health of the classical right is confirmed by the results of other barons such as Laurent Wauquiez in Auvergne (44%) and Valérie Pécresse in the Paris region, Ile de France.

They both dream of running for president

.

The problem is that the party does not want to organize primaries as established in its statutes.

Even the draw in Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur between LR candidate Renaud Muselier and RN candidate Thierry Mariani tastes like a victory for the classical right wing.

The first estimates place them equal to 35%.

For the extreme right it is a notorious ridicule:

ten points less than five years ago

.


Low participation

All this has an important nuance: the scarce, minimal, participation. Abstention reached 66%, a historical ceiling. Much higher than that of the first round of the municipal elections last spring, in the middle of the first wave of Covid.

The analysts alluded

to the fatigue due to the pandemic

, which has certainly prevented rallies and disturbed the pre-electoral parade. Sounds apologetic. Yesterday the curfew ended and life on the street has been reborn on the terraces.

Simply,

these elections have not interested the French

. If in 2015 it exceeded 50% and in 2010 it was 53.67% and yesterday it passed two thirds, something is not working in the system. Among other more solemn things, it is surprising that voting by mail has not been allowed.

Only 42% of citizens know the name of the president of their region

. The French regions are the poor echelon of politics. They have few skills and little budget. The campaign has talked about security, which is not a regional competence.

In fact, the political class has taken the regionals as a preseason match for the presidential ones.

In particular the two candidates leading the polls for May 2022: the leader of the National Meeting (RN, far right), Marine Le Pen and the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron.

Both have toured France campaigning

.

Le Pen, openly.

Macron going to meet the French in a Grand Tour of thematic village encounters.

They both voted in the morning in the same department, Pas de Calais.

The president and his wife Brigitte in the coastal town of Le Touquet, where they married and voted in the 2017 presidential elections

that led them to the Elysee.

Le Pen in the town of Hénin Beaumont, constituency for which she is a deputy.

The elections passed without serious incidents.

Although it is still significant that several schools could not open in Marseille as the designated ones did not show up.

Police recruited proxies on the fly.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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