“We are going to fight square meter by square meter” against “the extremes”. Gabriel Attal met his camp’s candidates at the Renaissance party headquarters on Wednesday evening. The Prime Minister will also be on the ground to support his family on Thursday and Friday. But for the legislative elections of June 30 and July 7, the majority will not be present in the 577 constituencies. Only 480 candidates are nominated by the presidential movement and its allies (Horizons, MoDem) under the banner “Together for the Republic”. How to explain it?
An outstretched hand not accepted
In the wake of the defeat in the European elections, the presidential party announced that it could “give the nomination” to opposition deputies who were “part of the Republican field”. During his press conference on Tuesday June 12, Emmanuel Macron relaunched this proposal to “political leaders who do not identify with extremist fever” to build “a federation of projects to govern”. But this call was not heeded, forcing the majority to reconsider their plans.
“In circles where there is a major risk of RN or LFI victory, we will favor outgoing Republican deputies by not presenting anyone in front of them,” underlines François Patriat, boss of the Renaissance senators. In his department, in Côte-d’Or, the elected Les Républicains outgoing from the 4th constituency Hubert Brigand will, for example, not have a majority opponent, in a territory where the extreme right obtained 45% in the European elections. . At the same time, the right will not send anyone against the Renaissance deputy outgoing from the 5th circo of Côte d’Or, Didier Paris. But both camps are careful to point out that no agreement has been reached… at least at the national level.
Almost no candidates overseas
Many outgoing LR deputies will therefore avoid competition from a candidacy from the presidential camp, such as Virginie Duby-Muller (Haute-Savoie), Émilie Bonnivard (Savoie), Michèle Tabarot (Alpes-Maritimes), or Nicolas Forissier (Indre). In total, according to the published list on the campaign website Together, 70 districts were “reserved for the Republican arc.” But certain choices can nevertheless be surprising.
Several LR elected officials, such as Pierre-Henri Dumont (Pas-de-Calais) or Aurélien Pradié (Lot) were spared even though they voted to censure the Borne government, during the pension reform, in March 2023. The deputies Liot, at the origin of this motion of censure, and several PS deputies, such as Jérôme Guedj, Dominique Potier or Cécile Untermaier, will not face the presidential camp. “We have to beat the extremes. So reason prevails over resentment,” laughs François Patriat, who is not putting aside a broad “coalition of the hypercenter” to counter the RN on July 7.
Our file on the legislative elections
The presidential camp has largely deserted the 27 overseas constituencies. Not surprising given the very disappointing results during the last elections. The majority has only invested three candidates: Nadia Ramassamy (Renaissance) in the 6th constituency of Reunion, Frantz Gumbs (MoDem) in the 1st constituency of Saint-Martin/Saint-Barthélemy and Mikaele Seo in the 1st constituency of Wallis and Futuna. A source familiar with the negotiations summarizes for AFP the Macronist strategy of not putting a candidate here or there: “It is not necessarily a question of Republican arc. Between overseas and constituencies where no one wants to go because the incumbent is “unbeatable”…”