David Desgouilles is a columnist for Marianne. He has published
Dérapage
(ed.
Du
Rocher, 2017) and
Their Lost Wars,
(ed. Du Rocher, 2019).
FIGAROVOX.
- According to a poll published in the JDD, Marine Le Pen would beat any leftist candidate in the presidential election.
How do you explain that the left is no longer convincing today and does not allow blocking the National Rally?
David DESGOUILLES.
-
What Laurent Bouvet had nicknamed the “left beaver”, because it was only occupied with building dams, seems indeed caught in the trap that it had itself created.
In this poll, Marine Le Pen is on a par with Anne Hidalgo, largely beating Yannick Jadot (53% / 47%) and crushing Jean-Luc Mélenchon (60% / 40%).
This is explained first of all by the fact that the left is declining throughout Western Europe and that it is weak from the first round.
Philippe Guibert in a column published last week on Marianne's site, recalls that only a quarter of voters “self-position” (forgive me the expression) now on the left.
Then, it is itself violently crossed by cleavages such as secularism, the attitude to be taken in the face of Islamism, the importation of woke culture from the United States.
This is the theory of "two irreconcilable lefts" theorized by Manuel Valls.
These new cleavages were added to the European cleavage born of the 2005 referendum that François Hollande had managed to put under wraps to be elected, before suffering the consequences under his mandate, having to separate from Arnaud Montebourg and replace him with Emmanuel Macron, and thus precipitate his downfall.
The controversy surrounding the words of Audrey Pulvar illustrates almost in a caricatured way the situation of the left today.
Yet deputy of Anne Hidalgo who wishes to keep a classic conception of French secularism (the mayor of Paris was present at the events of the Republican Spring), the former journalist, head of the PS list for the regional in Île-de -France, attempted an extremely awkward and disturbing kind of reconciliation about the UNEF “single-sex meetings”, indicating that whites could attend, but on condition of being silent.
The adage "in the first round, we choose, in the second we eliminate" now places Jean-Luc Mélenchon in number one danger for voters, taking the place of Marine Le Pen.
As for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, his participation in the demonstration of November 10, 2019, alongside organizations now dissolved, such as the CCIF, was a trigger in public opinion.
The Ifop poll shows that the adage "in the first round, we choose, in the second we eliminate" now places him in number one danger for voters, taking the place of Marine Le Pen.
Its accommodations - real or supposed - with Islamism are now considered more dangerous than the xenophobia - real or supposed - that the FN and then the RN have embodied for decades.
Today, despite the laudable efforts of Olivier Faure, the election of very clear PS mayors on these issues, such as that of Montpellier, the radical left considered to be accommodating seems the loudest to the entire electorate.
Pulvar's statements, like the attitude of EELV mayors did not help.
A feeling sets in: the one that the left considered as republican has already lost the game against the radical left in the woke fashion, and it is very likely that this explains the scores of Jadot and Hidalgo in these hypotheses. second round against Marine Le Pen.
Marine Le Pen assumes a more right-wing strategy to conquer the “bourgeois” electorate.
Do you think this is the right strategy, while the gap is widening in the polls against Xavier Bertrand?
Obviously, this is a second round strategy.
Convinced of being present, Marine Le Pen no longer wishes to frighten the retired and / or bourgeois electorate in the prospect of a duel with Emmanuel Macron.
In 2017, she considered that her economic program had been the cause of its failure, got rid of Florian Philippot and now accepts the Euro, for example.
Is this a good strategy?
Insofar as it draws the conclusions from what happened in 2017, one could indeed answer in the affirmative.
But it is not obvious.
Because precisely, what his father Jean-Marie Le Pen reproached him with five years ago, was to play the second round before the first.
But she is starting over.
Simply, instead of targeting the Melenchonist electorate, it targets that of the candidate of the classical right.
It is not without danger for the first round.
We can see that Xavier Bertrand insists a lot on sovereign themes.
If he adopted at the same time an economic, social, and European line in the lineage of Séguin-Pasqua, could he not then compete from the first round Marine Le Pen against the popular classes troubled by the new discourse of the latter?
France is certainly not the UK but let's remember how Boris Johnson eclipsed Nigel Farage.
In the event of a second round between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, the gap is reduced (54% / 46%).
By 2022 can the president of the National Rally still earn points and win the presidential election?
46%, this is certainly not the score of 2017 but it is still the one considered as humiliating by Jacques Chirac against François Mitterrand in 1988.
But indeed, we are one year away from the first round of the presidential election and, even if there are major trends, including the situation of the left analyzed above, many events can still occur from here. -the.
International events, the pandemic situation, and the way, the timeframe, in which we will - or not - get out of it, new applications, attacks, etc.
If the RN does not win any region or department as in 2015, its ability to win will again be called into question.
And there are also regional and departmental elections.
If the probable failure of LREM during these elections will have little influence on the presidential fate of Emmanuel Macron, it is different for Marine Le Pen.
If the RN does not win any region or department as in 2015, its ability to win will again be called into question.
This is perhaps what some personalities of the right known as "outside the walls" are waiting for to get started.
If, on the other hand, the RN wins a region or more, there will be a click in the opinion.
Not only will it eliminate all competition in its camp, but that would install the idea that "it is possible".
And initiate an even greater dynamic in its favor.
