At LREM, activists and executives struggle to take the measure of the setback

At the headquarters of La République en Marche, Paris 8th

Dead silence. Not a word. The discovery of the first projections of the results of the legislative elections on the screens of LREM HQ, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, was for the few Macronist activists present, a shock. A real. Of those who paralyze you, by the extent of the disappointment, by the surprise too, no doubt. Even in their worst nightmares, the macronists had probably not anticipated ending up with around 245 seats, or a hundred less than in 2017. Very far from an absolute majority (289).

Very quickly surrounded by journalists in the minutes that followed, the activists indeed lacked words and contented themselves with the basic elements of language. “We are disappointed, of course, but we are still the first group in the National Assembly”, explained Patrick, staring into space. We have the impression that no one is able to take the measure of what is happening. Score of the RN, of the Nupes, the abstention, the beaten tenors… Everyone is agar. Was the campaign bad? “Ah no here, we had a very good campaign”, notes an activist of Sylvain Maillard, Macronist candidate for the first district of Paris, who had his HQ at the party’s headquarters.

Reassure yourself about the local

How often, when the national results are not good, we focus on the local. In this constituency without stake, the incumbent was largely re-elected against the candidate of Nupes: the announcement of his victory, and of the victories of the Parisian ministers Clément Beaune and Stanislas Guerini, gave the opportunity to the militants to give the voice. The only time. “It is sure that it is a difficult election, it is not up to our expectations”, explains the re-elected deputy, who expresses all his sadness to see three ministers beaten.

But is even a majority executive like Sylvain Maillard able to take the measure of the event? Namely a small relative majority for a barely elected president, a completely new scenario under the Fifth Republic? The elected official insists on the positive points (Elisabeth Borne elected, “we remain the main force”) and wants to remind us that Together! is the only center with “a coherent project”. He even launches an appeal to join the presidential majority to elected officials of all stripes “because, well, being elected from the opposition is not funny in the National Assembly”.

Even on the RN score, Sylvain Maillard limits himself to saying that he “regrets” the success of the far-right party, as if, as usual, Marine Le Pen’s party had elected a small handful of deputies. . Everyone is going to need time to get used to a new landscape. A landscape not turned upside down, not even turned upside down, but, in truth, unknown to everyone.

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