"We are campaigning to win (constituencies), or at worst, to maintain ourselves."

Candidate for her own succession in the 8th Parisian district (east), LREM MP Laetitia Avia shows her optimism to AFP, at the start of a month and a half campaign.

Outgoing or not, can the Macronist candidates, whose list must be formalized by the beginning of May, repeat their raid in the capital?

Defending the "most cautious" analysis, an elected official believes that there are in Paris "9 constituencies where the majority is strong, 6 where it is difficult compared to the results of the 1st round" of the presidential election, and "3 possibly tight".

With around 35% of the vote as in 2017, Emmanuel Macron remained in the capital in the 1st round.

On the other hand, as at the national level, the situation has been completely upset on the left, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon crushing the competition (30%) and coming first in the working-class neighborhoods of the northeast and southeast.

"Crescent moon"

"There are 9 constituencies out of 18 where we are in the lead", proclaims Danielle Simonnet, the only LFI elected to the Council of Paris.

Whatever the end of the current negotiations on the left, and the persistent rumor of a Parisian candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, "we are very confident of a substantial contribution from Paris to the popular majority" that the leader of the Insoumis calls for it, she says.

Ms. Simonnet believes that with the probable or certain departure of several LREM deputies (Pierre Person, Pacôme Rupin, Hugues Renson, Mounir Mahjoubi, plus the seat left vacant by Benjamin Griveaux), "the 2017 novelty bonus" could change "in vote sanction of deputies who have done nothing or deserted".

LFI elected to the Paris Council Danielle Simonnet on March 10, 2020 in Paris CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT POOL / AFP / Archives

Elected in a "very centrist" constituency, where Jean-Luc Mélenchon came first "by a handful of votes", Laetitia Avia replies that "the Mélenchon vote in the presidential election is not necessarily a vote of membership" .

Accused by her opponent supported by the PS Jean-Luc Romero-Michel of "work deficit", she defends her "true local balance sheet" and retorts that the score, calamitous (2.17%), achieved by the mayor PS Anne Hidalgo in the 1st round in the capital represents "a sanction vote on what is happening in Paris".

Sylvain Maillard, outgoing LREM deputy in the 1st constituency, wants him to believe in the traditional dynamic to give the newly reelected president "the possibility of governing".

And if the constituencies of the "crescent moon" northeast having voted LFI will be hard to keep, the outgoing majority "can win the two from the west" still held by LR but where Emmanuel Macron came out on top (more than 40%) in the 1st round, underlines Mr. Maillard.

LREM deputy Sylvain Maillard at the National Assembly in Paris, March 3, 2020 Ludovic MARIN AFP / Archives

There as elsewhere, the right has just suffered a "bittering failure" with Valérie Pécresse, recognizes MP LR Brigitte Kuster, one of two targets.

But the ex-mayor of the 17th arrondissement asserts his "local anchorage" which still gives him "a small advantage".

Overall, LREM, Modem and Horizons can "manage to maintain a similar low water level but perhaps indeed not on the same circos", estimates an elected representative of the majority, evoking the "translation of the Macron vote" now "more to the right than it was not in 2017".

An LREM deputy summarizes: "The situation has changed in the east, it has changed in the west too".

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