A paradoxical evening. After almost three years spent underwater, Les Républicains counted heavily on the municipal elections: the ballot which would finally allow them to raise their heads, after being systematically suffocated by government policy, which was still biting more their lands and confiscated their voters. After a resounding victory in 2014 - the famous “blue wave” - LR boasted of being the “party of the territories”, and counted on this solid achievement to finally put a cleat in power in place.
But, on TV sets, like on Twitter accounts this election night like no other, we will not find anyone to boast or exhibit his big numbers, proof of a potential political renaissance. “There is a certain modesty and a humility. The only desirable victory is that against the coronavirus, ”argued Damien Abad, president of the LR group in the Assembly.
"We are all citizens, the emergency is health", recognizes in turn the first deputy vice-president of the party Guillaume Peltier. It is above all a question of knowing what will happen to these first results. All on the right asked that the main party leaders be consulted this Monday morning by the executive, in order to take stock of the health situation and decide in soul and conscience whether or not to maintain the 2nd round of municipal, to be held next Sunday.
»Find all the results, city by city
"It seems that we are moving towards a postponement ...", slips Peltier, given the evolution of the coronavirus epidemic. "It would be more prudent," says Abad. The right has been attacked this weekend because it would have lacked caution, it which would have pushed for the 1st round to take place at all costs. "It's a little controversy," sweeps Peltier, who says that the Elysée Palace has never been transparent about the reality of the evolution of the epidemic. If the 2nd round was effectively postponed, the right wants the election to be considered "acquired" for the lists which exceeded 50% in the 1st round.
LR leavers who pass hands down
The demand is not completely trivial: since in a good number of the cities it owned, the right has more than performed - even if the record of abstention necessarily blurs any analysis of this election. In Toulon, Cannes, Caen, or even François Baroin in Troyes ... The outgoing LR pass hands down from the first round. In Nice, Christian Estrosi is approaching the 50% mark, just like in Belfort or Limoges: two cities that the right had stolen from the left in 2014 and that it is clearly able to keep.
What discreetly saber champagne, then? Not so fast. Two shadows on the board: in Bordeaux, the successor of Alain Juppé, Nicolas Florian, is not in a very comfortable position and could be threatened by the alliance of left environmentalist. And in Marseilles, 2nd city of France, the very divided right between Martine Vassal and the dissident Bruno Gilles does not allow to assure with certainty to LR the conservation of the Marseille city.
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VIDEO. Municipal: Edouard Philippe evokes a possible postponement of the second round
These projections seem more virtual than ever, if there is no 2nd vote on Sunday, but they address in any case a serious warning to the right, which could then succeed in “spoiling” a beautiful electoral operation, more than necessary to the rebirth of LR, if it does not manage to secure victory in these two symbolic cities.