There is total uncertainty in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (Paca).
The duel at national stake between the two “enemy brothers” from the right, Renaud Muselier (LR) and Thierry Mariani (RN), remains very close, a few days before the regional elections of June 20 and 27.
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Regional elections: discover all the lists, candidates and polls in your region
According to the latest wave of the Ifop-Fiducial survey carried out for
Le Figaro
and LCI, the candidate of the National Rally, Thierry Mariani, is progressing in the first and second round.
He is given a winner against the outgoing LR president in all cases, even if the left withdraws between the two rounds: he would then win by a hair, with 51% against 49% - levels in the survey margin of error.
Widened gaps
In this region of more than 5 million inhabitants, strategic for the right, the gaps are widening between the two men.
With 41% of the voting intentions in the first round (+2 points compared to the study published on June 1), the defector Thierry Mariani amplifies his lead over his former sidekick.
Which remains at a high level (34%, -1 point), despite the psychodrama caused on the right by its rapprochement with La République en Marche (LREM).
To read also: Regional in Paca: the great discomfort of elected officials on the right
The RN candidate does not witness the dropout of his competitor, but he is now close to the score obtained in 2015 by the National Front deputy Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.
"It is very symbolically very strong: at the time, this high level was achieved on the name of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, and shortly after the attacks of November 13,"
notes the Director General of Ifop, Frédéric Dabi.
Unprecedented political landscape
The habits of the electorate appear hackneyed.
Renaud Muselier, supported by LR and LREM, attracts 91% of the supporters of Emmanuel Macron's party.
Presented as a figure of "openness" by Marine Le Pen, the former Sarkozy Minister of Transport manages to dynamite the right-wing electorate: 35% of LR supporters say they rally to him in the first round.
To read also: Regional in Paca: Renaud Muselier (LR) and Thierry Mariani (RN), the enemy brothers
"Mariani upsets all the traditional sociology of the RN vote"
, notes Frédéric Dabi.
A high proportion of seniors (38% in the first round), but also executives and higher intellectual professions (CSP +, 33%), usually strongly under-represented in the RN electorate, intends to vote for him.
Faced with this unprecedented political landscape, the list of union of the left (EELV, PS, PCF, “Génération.s”) is credited with 17% of the voting intentions in the first round (+2 points).
Its number one, the ecologist Jean-Laurent Félizia, finds himself in a dilemma in view of the second.
Read also: Presidential 2022: the French between sanction vote and republican front
Maintain to exist in the regional hemicycle, hypothesis which gives Thierry Mariani winner (44%), ahead of Renaud Muselier (36%) and the left (20%)? Or step aside in the interval between the two rounds, even if it means having no elected representative for the next six years, as the socialist Christophe Castaner had done in 2015? This time, even this reflex of “republican front” could not be enough to prevent a victory of the RN with the national echo, with less than a year of the presidential election.
