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Republican front clearly defeats Le Pen's far right in regional elections

2021-06-28T00:27:28.879Z


The second round of these elections reinforces right-wing leaders who aspire to compete with Macron in the 2022 presidential elections


More information

  • The left supports the right in the Marseille region to defeat Le Pen in France

  • The French right cracks the Macron-Le Pen duopoly

The Republican front - the union of all parties against the extreme right - this Sunday, in regional elections, defeated Marine Le Pen's National Regrouping (RN) in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA) region. The current regional president and candidate of the classical right, Renaud Muselier, supported by the left, got 56.8% compared to 43.2% of Thierry Mariani, the candidate of the RN, in the Marseille region, according to the first estimates .

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA) was the only region in which the extreme right was the most voted party in the first round and in which it had a chance of winning. Le Pen's defeat raises questions about his strategy to win the French presidency in 2022, where polls predict that in the second round he will face President Emmanuel Macron. And they reaffirm the validity of the republican front, the French version of the sanitary cordon to isolate the RN.

The second round of the regional elections, again marked by a record abstention, also gave a resounding victory to two leaders of the traditional right who aspire to be candidates in the 2022 presidential elections against the centrist Macron. They are Xavier Bertrand, who was re-elected in the northern region of Hauts-de-France with 52.7% of votes, and Laurent Wauquiez, who won in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes with 55.9% of votes, according to estimates.

If there were an abstention party, however, this would be the first in France: 31.5 million abstentionists, 66% of the electorate. The campaigns of the French Interior Ministry were of little use on social networks to encourage young people to vote, nor the calls to the polls by the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, and leaders of all parties. The abstention was massive this Sunday in the second round of the regional elections in France.

A record was not broken in a modern election as in the first round, a week earlier, but it was close. On June 20, abstention was 66.7%, the highest figure in the Fifth Republic, the current constitutional regime, founded in 1958. Only in the 2000 referendum to shorten the presidential term from seven to five years was there a higher percentage of abstentionists. In the 2015 regionals, abstention was 41.5% and in 2010, 48.9%.

It is not unusual that in elections such as regional ones, turnout is lower than in presidential elections, which tend to mobilize around 80% of the electorate.

But this time, the chasm widens, which has opened a debate on the solutions: some politicians have suggested introducing voting online.

But the debate revolves, above all, around the causes.

Is this an abstention motivated by disinterest in these specific elections, where the campaign has been little visible and the feeling of many French people was that there was nothing important at stake?

Or does abstention reflect a fundamental problem in French democracy?

In the first round, the highest abstention was registered among young people, people with lower incomes and traditional voters of the extreme right of Marine Le Pen.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-06-28

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