Jean-Philippe Moinet is the founder and director of the Revue Civique.
This is one of those subjects that the “microcosm” loves, to use Raymond Barre's words.
An institute, Harris Interactive, measures voting intentions at all times, including completely out of context.
And now a poll photograph places, in the event of a second Macron-Le Pen round, the President of the RN at 48%.
Or, given the margins of error (around 2%), on the verge of victory and entry to the Elysee!
Of course, this is in no way to underestimate the solidity of the base which Marine Le Pen enjoys today in public opinion, nor its ability to aggregate a large “protest bloc”, in the country of 66 million prosecutors. .
To join one of the analyzes of political scientist Pascal Perrineau, it is clear that the President of the RN has been able to capitalize on a "tribunician function", which historically corresponds to a popular expectation, and to capture in addition to her traditional electorate initially located on the left: hence the current success of an electoral alloy in which the extreme right is found, national-sovereignism and “gaucho-lepénisme”.
In some areas, such as Hauts-de-France, the erasure of the left is also close to collapse, France, which suffers socially, sometimes preferring the Le Pen current to the Mélenchon movement.
Any presidential election is first and foremost a singular adventure, made up of uncertainties
But history, the stories of presidential elections do not show less that this deadline is something else than the calculation of electoral apothecaries, and that it looks like a singular adventure.
The uncertain nature of which is an integral and even essential part of the mystery that this election carries and of the passions it arouses.
This is why any scenario assured like any current projection, 16 months from the decisive turn of the presidential election of 2022, seems not only fictitious but in part absurd.
As we know, all political sands have, for years, become very fluid.
What political scientists call "electoral volatility" has undoubtedly never been so strong, including and perhaps above all for the mother of battles that is the presidential election, where the personal situation plays as much as the ideological orientations.
And for my part, I will not bet (since it is all the same a political horse race for many French people) a single kopek on the assured fixity of the duo / duel Macron-Le Pen.
Even if all the opinion studies for two years continue to "give" them both winners of the selection of the first round, I tend to privilege in this area the uncertainty and the randomness which can undermine the scenario announced for a return match of the 2017 presidential election.
A dropout, by one or the other of the two candidates, without being obviously certain (no certainty can be imposed either in this sense) is to be taken into serious consideration of probability.
Because a whole series of surprises can arise within six months of the deadline.
Let us remember the beginning of January 2017: no one really doubted that François Fillon could claim a presidential victory, everyone was sure that he would appear in the second round.
And patatras, everything collapsed.
Even if his score - of 20% - was not negligible (it was equivalent to that of J Chirac on April 21, 2002), he was eliminated from the second round, as we know, by both Marine Le Pen and an Emmanuel Macron that no one had predicted, six months earlier, to be able to rise so high in the votes.
A former traveling companion of François Mitterrand, Paul Quilès, with the wisdom of long experience, reminded me recently that at four months from the 1981 election everyone (brilliant observers of political life in mind ) "Gave" Valéry Giscard d'Estaing winner of Francois Mitterrand.
The greatest caution is therefore required with regard to the spring 2022 forecasts. Much water, perhaps furious moreover, will flow under the Mirabeau Bridge for electoral ambitions.
Especially in a country like France, of which we know the extent of the leaning towards protest and the acuteness of generalized mistrust (which should not be denied by the next annual barometer of Cevipof-Sciences Po).
The hypothesis of another presidential duel must therefore be taken seriously.
Whether to the detriment of the outgoing President, for some reasons that we will specify, or to the detriment of the President of the RN, anything can indeed happen in a year and, in particular, the emergence of a third candidacy that can be considered credible. and acceptable by part of the electorate either Emmanuel Macron, or Marine Le Pen, or both, to the point of upsetting the situation, for example at the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022.
Emmanuel Macron's side, some serious hypotheses can "challenge" the certainty that he is present and victorious in the second round.
First, his own choice.
To be or not to be a candidate.
The remarks went relatively unnoticed but a passage of the interview granted by the Head of State to the media "Brut" seems clear.
Emmanuel Macron said to himself, and has repeated it to some of his relatives since, completely free to go or not to the battle of 2022.
Macron has not decided to go there in 2022. Because everything cannot be assessed before the end of 2021
The state of opinion within a year, the position of the various contenders for the Elyos throne, but also his own freedom to choose to run for a second term - also knowing that under the Fifth Republic, all the President-candidates who stand for are presented to a second presidential election, except in the case of cohabitation, were all beaten or eliminated before the hour (Giscard, Sarkozy, Holland).
Even General de Gaulle, elected in 1965 by universal suffrage for the first time, was not in a position to remain in power after the referendum disavowal of 1969.
All of this can only make his distant successor reflect, naturally.
Especially since the convergence of the “anti” Macron could appear in the campaign of the 1st round each striking his blows, seeking to surf the famous “clearing” wave.
This wave is far from being visible today (the executive even enjoys a relatively good opinion rating despite - or thanks to - the crisis) but it can suddenly rise, precisely in the context of a campaign, a few months before the poll.
Everything will therefore rest, and fortunately this is the essential, on what the French ultimately wish for the next five years.
From this perspective, Marine Le Pen seems less exposed by a risk of dropping out.
The latest Harris Interactive poll "places" her at the top of a first round with 26 or 27% of the voting intentions.
More than ten points above the third man, who appears today: Xavier Bertrand.
But here again, beware of optical illusions, which can deceive so far from the real context of a campaign, events and revelations also which can destabilize, including the current favorite of the first round.
And, above all, a stone's throw from the crucial election, the criteria of competence, credibility and capacity for alliances too, could take much more weight than today in the final decision of citizens.
This could favor either the outgoing President, or one or another candidate, who could try to make the argument for a change (an alternative to Emmanuel Macron) "without risk" of the "populist" type (that would represent Marine Le Pen).
Even so, especially in a first-round campaign, the argument can run into limits in much of the popular electorate.
In any case, it seems unwise to assure today that we will meet again, at the end of a first round, with the announced duel Macron-Le Pen.
Everything shows, in the past elections, that France and the French like surprises, and that they sometimes like to provoke them.
The lasting state of crisis poses an additional question, and reinforces the scenario of uncertainties.
Of course, in the end, the surprise can always be ... that there isn't.
And that we are therefore witnessing in April-May 2022 the aftershock of the battle of 2017. But I will simply advise certain actors and observers of our political life, who today seem too frozen in their certainty, not to bet a kopek, or even a euro, on such a scenario.
