The polls gave them neck and neck, yet there was no photo.
Renaud Muselier will remain president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, after obtaining 57.3% of the votes cast in the second round of regional elections on Sunday evening.
His only opponent, Thierry Mariani (National Assembly), finished well behind with 42.7% of the vote.
"The result of this second round has contradicted all the polls," gargled the elected Republicans (LR), 62 years old, as soon as his victory was announced.
No left-wing candidate was on the starting list: Jean-Laurent Félizia withdrew from the race under pressure from national authorities while the ecologist Jean-Marc Governatori and Isabelle Bonnet (Force Ouvrière) had not obtained the minimum threshold required to be maintained, namely 10% of the vote.
Republican Front
Renaud Muselier collected on name nearly 350,000 additional ballots from one round to the next. If we look at the municipalities where the three cumulative left lists obtained at least 30% of the votes in the first round, and restricting ourselves to those where more than 1,000 inhabitants voted, the number of votes collected by the president outgoing has almost always been at least doubled. For example, in Avignon, (36.27% for the left in the first round), Renaud Muselier obtained 10,061 votes this Sunday, against 3,690 a week earlier.
We can assume that a large part of the 5584 left-wing voters in the first round in this city therefore turned on him this Sunday in the name of the “republican front”.
As soon as the first estimates were announced, the elected LR was also delighted with a “victory for all those who voted today, often beyond their political and ideological affiliations”.
The increase in participation, which rose from 29 to 32.6% in one week, was also able to benefit him.
VIDEO.
Regional in Paca: the "logic of unity prevailed", according to Renaud Muselier
The most spectacular development can be found in Port-de-Bouc (Bouches-du-Rhône), located on the Mediterranean coast.
The number of voices given to Renaud Muselier rose from 352 to 1,687 in one week.
In the first round, the left had obtained 1735. A good part of them had to slip a Muselier ballot in the ballot box and some doubtless voted blank (here, this vote went from 3% to more than 10% registrants).
Renaud Muselier is also full of votes in several Marseille districts where the left had obtained at least 40% of the votes in the first round.
To read alsoRégionales en Paca: "I voted against the extreme right, not for Muselier"
The same phenomenon is observed for all municipalities, regardless of their size.
The more the left obtained a significant score in the first round, the more the candidate Les Républicains progressed from one Sunday to the next.
In towns and villages where the three left-wing lists exceeded 30% of the vote, Renaud Muselier's score climbed by 130% on average.
Conversely, where the left came under 15%, the right won "only" 55% of additional votes.
Thierry Mariani generally also progresses, but in much smaller proportions (between + 20 and + 30% on average).
"I'm not going to say that the Republican front is dead, but almost", estimated June 2 on France Inter Stéphane Séjourné, special adviser to Emmanuel Macron.
In the regional elections in Paca, he seems to have survived rather well.