Benjamin Morel is a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas.
FIGAROVOX. -
According to an Odoxa-Backbone consulting poll
, the government majority's support for the LR list is seen by 6 out of 10 French people (59%) as
"an electoral maneuver by the government to divide the right"
.
Has the majority's strategy failed?
Benjamin MOREL. - It
all depends on what we consider to be the priority strategy of the majority. If Emmanuel Macron's objective is to prevent PACA from being taken by the RN, then indeed all this is at least a failure, drawing on him an unfair judgment.
If, and unless you are very naive that does not fool anyone, the objective is to weaken the right, then it is rather won. Especially since the maneuver is intelligent. The right has no real interest in allying with LREM at the risk of scaring (as we have seen in municipal elections) part of its electorate towards the RN or towards abstention. If you take the latest Opinion-way Régiotrack barometer, you will notice that 35% of LR voters say they travel to the regions to sanction the head of state. However, the LR electorate in PACA is generally better off and older. It is less permeable to the RN vote than, for example, in Hauts-de-France or the Grand Est. Local politicians, who do not pass to embody the centrist wing of the party,are therefore very tempted to look towards an alliance with LREM on the premise that they have little to lose locally. It was therefore there that LREM could most easily play on the division.
Any regional president caught in a quadrangular and not being able to reach this threshold, will be forced to consider an alliance with LREM, even if it means opposing his party.
Benjamin Morel
The rights have always known great ideological opposition. What opposed the UDF and RPR in the eighties is moreover much deeper than what today opposes the various currents of the right. What has weakened the right, as indeed the PS, is the feudalisation of parties. Decentralization has developed a local interest different from the national interest of political parties. This is all the more the case since whoever wins national elections is generally sanctioned in local elections. The end of the accumulation of mandates then finished breaking the community of interests between local and national fields.
LREM, which has no local roots, can adopt a more flexible strategy, less ballasted by the interests of local elected officials. As it has little chance of winning a region, the strategic objective is twofold. First, to minimize the defeat by allying with the potential winning lists. Then create division among his opponents. To get an absolute majority in a Regional Council, counting the majority bonus, you need to get at least 33% of the vote in the second round. This is easy in a bipolarized political landscape, but not quadrupolarized, as it is today. Any regional president caught in a quadrangular and not being able to reach this threshold, will be forced to consider an alliance with LREM, even if it means opposing his party. VS'is political politics, but let's be clear, in a year, when the French go to vote in the presidential elections, they won't have that in mind. LREM therefore has everything to gain.
Emmanuel Macron is even more severely judged since 62% of French people think he is taking advantage of these elections to apply a strategy of division of the right in view of the presidential election. Will there be lasting consequences for the President of the Republic?
No, probably not. Public opinion is now quite far from the political game and it keeps a rather weak memory over the long term of its upheavals. The real risk for Emmanuel Macron is above all to be held responsible for the passage of certain regions to the National Gathering. This would be the case in PACA if the maintenance of the Cluzel list were to lead Thierry Mariani to win. This would also be the case in the Hauts de France, if Xavier Bertrand were to fail following a stick-footing of a few percent from Eric Dupond-Moretti… The President no doubt thinks that he would appear to be the only bulwark against the RN , but it would also contribute to its credibility. The FPÖ in Austria like La Liga in Italy first came to power by making themselves credible in the management of communities. If theLR electorate of PACA, which is not so far in its values from the RN electorate but deems this party incapable of holding the reins of power, should see in a year that his region is rather well managed by Thierry Mariani, he could well be less reluctant to give Marine Le Pen a chance.
The Macron-Le Pen duel is anything but certain.
Benjamin Morel
Finally, would you say that the Macron-Le Pen duel is not so certain?
If you had asked me this question in May 2016, you would have asked me if Alain Juppé's victory was certain.
In May, 2011 if the Sarkozy-Strauss-Khan duel was certain.
So, no the Macron-Le Pen duel is anything but certain.
The LR electorate is a rather elderly electorate. He voted Fillon. He voted for Sarkozy. He voted for Chirac, and before VGE, even for the oldest Pompidou or De Gaulle. He has a strong political identity. It is an electorate who will vote on the right if he believes in a victory under his own colors. If a credible application exists on the right and looks likely to win, he will follow it. Political space exists today. It is still necessary that it be held in a clear manner and that the right is united to make it exist. The division orchestrated around a primary (whose double failure on the right and on the left in 2017 should have vaccinated the parties), the pitfalls stretched by LR to Xavier Bertrand (who now seems the best placed) fall under this title of a suicidal impulse.
The difficulty today remains to find someone to represent the right in the presidential election. For lack of a natural candidate, who will it benefit?
The best point of comparison remains the Europeans.
In these elections, voters generally vote for national issues.
An Ipsos-Sopra Steria survey, from May 2019, shows that 27% of François Fillon voters in 2017 voted LREM and 18% RN.
If the right is weak, part of his electorate will fall back on Emmanuel Macron for fear of Marine Le Pen, another on the RN out of mistrust of Emmanuel Macron.
Benjamin Morel
The logic of the voters is not always that of the election.
Faced with the risk of victory for the President of the Republic (essentially symbolic in the context of a European election), the right-wing voters who are most opposed to him choose the list most able to contest him for first place.
On the other hand, those worried about the RN push, then see LREM as the best dam.
If the right is weak, part of his electorate will fall back on Emmanuel Macron for fear of Marine Le Pen, another on the RN out of mistrust of Emmanuel Macron.
LR sits on golden electorate space.
Its voters are not subject to abstention and have a strong political identity.
Failure to properly manage this windfall, it can only attract greed.