atmane tazaghart

– The RN still comes up against a “glass ceiling”. Coming in first in the Europeans and during the first round of the Legislative elections, Marine Le Pen’s party saw the trend radically reversed, to its disadvantage, in the second round.

The Republican “sanitary cordon”, intended to block the arrival of the Far Right in power, resulted in a record number of withdrawals of candidates qualified for the second round, reducing the number of ‘‘triangulars’’ by 306 to 89.

And the strong citizen mobilisation – which resulted in a record number of proxies established (3.2 million) and a participation rate (66.6%), up 19.4% compared to 2022 legislative elections – proves that, despite all the efforts made to de-demonise and trivialise it, the RN still comes up against the Republican “glass ceiling”. It remains to be seen for how much longer (read page 8).

– The balance of power between the left-wing parties rebalanced. Faced with the Far-Right danger that was looming on the horizon, following a strange dissolution that occurred in the wake of a tidal wave from the RN to the Europeans, the left-wing parties chose to join forces from the first round of the legislative elections.

And even if the poison of division did not take long to spread again, the constitution of the ‘‘New Popular Front’’ allowed not only an unexpected breakthrough, which put the left in the lead with 180 seats in the new Assembly, but also an important – and, ultimately, beneficial – rebalancing of the balance of power between the different components of the left. And this is an extension of the social-democratic dynamic that emerged during the European campaign. Thus, compared to the 2022 legislative elections, the Socialist Party gained 33 seats and EELV 12. While LFI stagnated, losing 1 seat.

– Failing to be isolated, ‘‘melenchonism’’ is contained. Building on the score obtained by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round of the presidential election of April 10, 2022 (with 21.95% votes, he was barely 400,000 votes short of reaching the second round) La France Insoumise has ”vampirized”  the alliance of left-wing parties (Nupes), established during the legislative elections which took place two months later: LFI won the overwhelming majority of constituencies (326 against 77 with the ecologists, 70 for the PS and 50 for the PCF). As a result, the Melenchonist party established itself as the main left-wing force in the Assembly, obtaining 72 seats against 26 for the PS, 23 for EELV and 12 for the PCF.

And despite the ”bonus for leavers” in the name of which LFI granted itself pride of place during the investitures for the legislative elections of June 30 and July 7, within the framework of the New Popular Front (229 constituencies, against 175 for the PS, 92 for EELV and 50 for the PCF), at the end of the ballot LFI only obtained 71 seats. It is now only 7 seats ahead of the PS, whereas the gap was 46 seats in 2022. And to this loss of speed is added another setback afflicting Melenchonism, through the plebiscite that the voters reserved for the LFI dissident candidates ”purged” by Mélenchon: 74.1% for Danielle Simonet in Paris, 65.9% for Hendrik Davi in Marseille and 57.1% Alexis Corbière in Seine-Saint Denis (read page 14).

– The social dissociated from the identity. Although it did not obtain an absolute majority, the breakthrough of the New Popular Front, which came first with 180 seats, will inevitably have the effect – whatever the composition of the political team that will be put in place to form a government, on the left or in the center – to give social demands back the central place that they should never have left in political debate and government action.

Under the five-year term of François Hollande (2012-2017), the left gave the impression of substituting the societal for the social: historic advances on the first (notably with ‘‘marriage for all’’) and dramatic setbacks on the second (Labour law of 2016 …). The errors of the Macronist ‘‘at-the-same-time’’, and the forceful passages on the reforms of pensions, labor code and unemployment insurance ended up exacerbating frustrations and resentments, giving the impression to the most disadvantaged French people that only the RN was now concerned about the deterioration of their living conditions.

Except that the RN constantly combines social issues (purchasing power, social downgrading, medical deserts…) with identity themes (immigration, integration, insecurity…). However, this amalgamation of the social and the identity has always constituted the fuel on which all fascisms feed.