"Municipal elections will be like the school of fans: everyone will have won," predicted a member of the National Rally before the first round, betting on political parties who would all claim an advantageous reading of the results. Alas, at RN, we do not pretend to present the election night of March 15 as a success. “Whereas in 2014, out of the 369 lists presented, 317 (85.9%) had exceeded 10% of the votes obtained in the first round, […], this is only the case in 136 (51, 9%) of the 262 municipalities in 2020 where the RN participates in electoral contests ”, underlines the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, close to the PS, in a note. The RN should see its number of municipal councilors halved while the progression of its territorial network was the only publicly displayed objective.
If the party of Marine Le Pen has spectacularly confirmed the test in most of the cities it already held, thus seeming to offer lasting fiefs like the PCF, it does not seem able to tip over new municipalities only in a very limited number of cases. In particular Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne), a handful of Vaucluse cities, even Vauvert (Gard). But in Denain (Nord), Carvin or even Montigny-en-Gohelle (Pas-de-Calais), cities that even the most pessimistic internally presented as winners, the outgoing mayors were re-elected in the first round.
In the entourage of Marine Le Pen, we have an explanation: the Covid-19. Viral fear and massive abstention would have particularly affected the RN electorate. "This is the official line. But the catastrophe of the first round is explained by the lamentable state of our federations. We never worked on local implantation, ”laments a local executive.
"Local land is the land of outgoing mayors"
Can the Covid crisis change the game in the second round? "It's a bit of a rugby ball, we don't really know how it's going to bounce back," recognizes Philippe Olivier, advisor to Marine Le Pen and unsuccessful candidate on the RN list in Calais. "We can expect a very strong abstention which mechanically reinforces the weight of the clienteles of the mayors in place," he analyzes. Or, on the contrary, politics will resume its rights and we will witness a movement of ideological rocking. "
Instructions were therefore given to the candidates to nationalize the campaign for the second round as much as possible. "To go on the local ground, it is to go on the ground of the outgoing mayors who campaigned with their masks during the confinement", do we slip to the party leadership where we put on a sanction vote against Emmanuel Macron and his management of the health crisis.
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Hence the need for Marine Le Pen to reinstall the duel with the Head of State which she presents as the "absolute anti-De Gaulle". And her insistence on the LREM-LR agreements in a few large cities, such as Lyon or Strasbourg, which would be symptoms of the recomposition of the national political landscape that she calls for. It is also pleased that in some cities the RN has been able to carry out list mergers. But the cases are counted on the fingers of one hand (Marles-les-Mines, Aubignan, Cavaillon).
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"When we go from absolute prohibition to do so in a few cases, it is because something is evolving", smiles Marine Le Pen all the same. But at Carpentras, LR Claude Melquior, tempted by a rapprochement with Bertrand de La Chesnais, the candidate supported by the RN, ended up throwing in the towel. "I am for the union of the rights but not with the candidates of the RN", he slips. Rest Perpignan where several candidates from the LREM list called to support Louis Aliot in his duel against the outgoing LR mayor. In the RN Staff, we cross our fingers: "If we win Perpignan, it will be a big zoom that will make us forget the rest. "