Image source, Getty Images
- author, Hugh Schofield
- role, Paris correspondent
-
The deadline for submitting candidacy for France’s elections ended on Tuesday, with a number of left-wing and centre-right candidates defecting in an attempt to block the far-right Rally National (RN) party.
Parties had to register their candidates by 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT) for the second round of parliamentary elections on Sunday.
While an official list has yet to be released, French media reported that 218 out of 214 third-place candidates have withdrawn from the race in each constituency, meaning the race will be a three-way contest with around 108 candidates instead of just 300.
Except for two districts where four candidates qualified, the rest will go to a two-way runoff election.
Marine Le Pen’s party won a big victory in the first round of voting last Sunday, winning together with her coalition forces around 33% of the vote.
A broad left-wing coalition came in second, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party came in third.
But Le Pen’s chances of winning a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly have been undermined by blockade tactics by her party’s opponents.
If the third-placed centre or left-wing candidate withdraws, the anti-RN votes will be concentrated around one candidate, making it easier for them to win against the RN candidate.
The left-leaning New Popular Front (NPF), made up of everyone from centre-left social democrats to far-left anti-capitalists, instructed all third-place candidates to withdraw and allow the centres to win the anti-RN vote.
The NPF is backing two veteran Macron allies, former prime minister Elisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin, to win in constituencies in Normandy and the north.
Conversely, pro-Macron candidates withdrew to help the far-left François Ruffin defeat the RN candidate in the northern city of Amiens.
Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old leader of the RN and a candidate for prime minister, denounced the arrangements as the result of an “unholy alliance” between parties that have until now been enemies of each other.
Macron’s centrist party’s instructions to candidates are vaguer than those of the NPF.
Macron himself and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal have called for “no vote for the RN”, but some in his camp believe the RN’s far-left composition makes the NPF similarly unacceptable.
Senior officials, including Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, who are both from the centre-right, have refused to instruct the RN to vote systematically against the bill.
RN leaders have said they will not try to form a government unless they win a majority in parliament in Sunday’s vote. They say they do not want the appearance of power if in reality they cannot pass laws.
But Marine Le Pen appeared to qualify this on Tuesday, saying a smaller majority would be sufficient, as long as it was not too far from the 289-seat threshold.
He told French radio that winning around 270 lawmakers would enable his party to negotiate with individual lawmakers from other factions and reach agreements.
“We’re going to say to them: ‘Are you ready to join us in this new majority? Are you ready to vote for a motion of confidence? Are you ready to vote for the budget?'” she said.
She said she could target independents from the right and left, as well as some conservative Republicans, who received 10% of the vote in Sunday’s vote.
If the RN wins an absolute majority on Sunday, Bardella will be asked by President Macron to form a government, ushering in a period of tense coexistence between the two political rivals.
Under France’s Fifth Republic constitution, “the government determines and implements national policy”, meaning power will be transferred from Macron to the Prime Minister’s Office.
But Macron will likely try to retain power in the areas of foreign policy and defense, which, by precedent rather than the actual letter of the constitution, have remained the monopoly of the Élysée Palace in the current coexistence.
Marine Le Pen also accused the president of staging an “administrative coup” on Tuesday, as she had heard he was preparing key personnel changes for the police and army just days before the vote.
“We want to nominate our own people to public office to contest the results of the election, but if that stops, [the government] “It has prevented them from implementing the policies that the French people want. I call it an administrative coup,” she said.
“I hope it’s just a rumor,” she added.
