Last Friday, Marine Le Pen went to Seine-et-Marne for a final campaign trip.
"I call for general mobilization: this Sunday, not a voice should be missing," urged the head of the National Rally (RN), alongside his champion in Ile-de-France, Jordan Bardella.
Alas, the RN has not succeeded in its bet.
With a national result estimated Sunday evening at 19.4% of the vote, the party of Marine Le Pen achieves a score well below that of 2015 (27.73%) and what the polls predicted.
Except in Paca (Thierry Mariani around 34%), the RN does not rise to first place in any region, while he was leading the race in six of them six years ago and the latest polls suggested that the situation would recur in at least five.
Infog estimates Infographics
The reason ? The strong abstention and the bonus for graduates, obviously, which had already cost the RN dearly in the municipal elections of 2020. “I'm afraid of fear. The popular electorate is the one who is most afraid of the disease ”, confided, concerned, Marine Le Pen in January. Ultimately, it was probably not so much the health concern as the lack of a campaign that played a role, but with equivalent consequences. An Ipsos Sopra-Steria survey proves him right, since 73% of his presidential voters abstained.
However, over the course of the campaign, RN executives began to believe in it against the backdrop of dynamic polling.
While she stubbornly refused to give a number of regions to conquer, Marine Le Pen finally risked on May 25 to slip that the Bourgogne Franche-Comté region was, for example, part of the "top 3 winnable regions".
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In this region, its candidate, Julien Odoul, is ultimately only 23.8%, behind the president (PS), while a last poll placed him at 28%.
Among the biggest poor performances: in Hauts-de-France, Sébastien Chenu, already eliminated in the first round in the municipal elections in Denain (North), collects barely 24.4% of the vote, far behind Xavier Bertrand while a last poll placed it at 32%.
VIDEO.
Marine Le Pen: "Our voters did not come, I call for a start"
Shortly before 9 pm, Marine Le Pen did not hide her disappointment, evoking a "civic disaster" and, in order not to be too quickly erased from the photo, a "deceptive vision of the political forces involved".
For lack of anything better, the already presidential candidate of 2022 was delighted that the RN is in "second place in most regions" and vigorously called on her supporters to mobilize next Sunday in order to "wrest the victories of which the France needs the second round ”… and on which she herself relied a lot to give credibility to her way to the Elysee Palace.
