As of: 06/28/2021 1:51 p.m.
After the election failure of their parties, Macron and Le Pen are in need of an explanation. The left and conservatives, on the other hand, are the winners of the regional elections. What does this mean for the presidential election in spring?
From Linda Schildbach,
ARD studio Paris
The bourgeois conservatives in France draw hope and self-confidence from this regional election. They were able to assert themselves in their regions and put their right-wing populist opponents of the Rassemblement National in their place. Just a few minutes after the first extrapolation, the winner of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand, already announced his ambitions for the presidential election. “Formons une belle équipe” – in English: let’s form a great team – he called out to the other two conservative election winners, Laurent Wauquiez and Valérie Pécresse.
Pécresse, Regional President in the greater Paris area, agreed: “A very nice team for France and no one is unexpectedly in. Because as different as the winners are, they were all achieved in an extremely difficult context. It is our responsibility to unite, to act collectively and create a third force. ”
The conservatives as the third force, so as an alternative and challenge to the Macron-Le Pen duel. The two of them in particular were punished twice by the voters, headlines the daily newspaper “Le Figaro”. The elections revealed the major weaknesses of the Macron camp: it is not locally anchored and ends up in the back seats.
Macron’s “upside-down pyramid” movement
Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus is not surprised: “That is the paradox about this president. He is the first in modern history to be elected without a party supporting and supporting him. Observers of political life say: The Movement of the ‘République En Marche’ is an upside-down pyramid, it rests on its top and has no base. ”
A lot was at stake for Marine Le Pen, however. But her change of strategy did not work, analyzes the political journalist Alain Duhamel: “She wanted to behave respectfully, to be moderate and obviously that did not mobilize anyone. The Rassemblement National must take the risk To scare. Marine Le Pen scores on security and immigration, but you don’t expect any fiscal ideas from her. ”
But the leaps of joy in the conservative camp and among the socialists should not be too great. The problem: Even if the losers in the regional elections have been determined, what do the victories mean when just one in three French people has even cast their vote?
Macron and Le Pen ahead in survey
The president of the polling institute “ELABE”, Bernard Sananès, speaks of a democratic disaster: “You could say that all regional heads have been strengthened, but at the same time the low voter turnout also shows that they were unable to convince that the region is useful and that its balance sheet is important . That is the most striking thing about this regional election. ”
Just because of the different meanings that the French attach to them, regional and presidential elections cannot be compared one-to-one. So nothing is lost for Le Pen and Macron. An Ipsos poll sees the two in the first round of the presidential election as before. In third place, however, is the conservative Xavier Bertrand.