Benjamin Morel is a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas.
FIGAROVOX. - Valérie Pécresse was elected candidate for the Les Républicains party on Saturday 4 December. Is she a good candidate for the Republican right?
Benjamin MOREL. -
That's a complex question.
Valérie Pécresse has both advantages and disadvantages.
Regarding its advantages, it has an image of credibility and competence.
In a country that suffers both from emerging from a five-year period of permanent crisis and from an opposition with a lack of credibility, this is not a lesser advantage.
She is the only one today who can embody that.
The legitimacy resulting from the primary and his profile allow him, moreover, to hold a good part of the base, ideologically closer to Eric Zemmour, and elected officials, often not very distant on the background of Emmanuel Macron.
After leaving LR because the party seemed too right to him, it will be difficult to appear as more credible than Eric Zemmour or Le Pen on the most polarized right-wing electorate.
Benjamin Morel
On the handicap side, there is a problem of narrative and a concern for political space. The flip side of credibility lies in a managerial approach. While a presidential election is carried out on a lyrical breath and some key ideas, Valérie Pécresse offers the image of a serious and applied local elected. It is also quite funny to see that while LR and the PS feudalized, both in their composition and in their program, they went to seek to represent them a local elected… from Île-de-France . If we draw a parallel with Anne Hidalgo, we can note that the transfer from manager of a community to political candidate of the whole nation is not easy. Moreover, if local credit is cheap at the national level,the balance sheet of the community represents a dream angle of attack for the opponents.
The other handicap is due to the political space that Valérie Pécresse can encompass. The choice of a traditional campaign of alliance of the right and the center comes up against the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron. Embodying this line better than the outgoing president, who has the advantage of being in place and therefore of attracting a vote of legitimacy, especially from the elderly electorate, is not easy. Moreover, to conquer the party, Valérie Pécresse had to radicalize a program that she risks dragging like a ball. Even Jean-Marie Le Pen had never thought of going back to the night of August 4, 1789 by territorializing the sentences… On the other hand, after having left LR because the party seemed too right to him, it will be difficult to 'appear as more credible than Eric Zemmour or Le Pen on themost polarized right-wing electorate.
Read also Valérie Pécresse launches the battle against Emmanuel Macron
Finally, Valérie Pécresse drags a very liberal software. While a survey, IFOP pour l'Humanité in May 2021 shows that 78% of French people want to restore the wealth tax, 83% want to tax shareholders' dividends, this makes it difficult to expand the electorate. There remains a useful voting dynamic against Emmanuel Macron. For that, however, it would be necessary to pass in front of Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen. However, for the moment, the candidate has a ceiling of 10%. At least one could argue that she is best placed to beat Emmanuel Macron. However, the latest Harris barometer gives it 41% against him, against 46% for Marine Le Pen. A lot of things will play out in the coming days. The Congress can give it a dynamic that would change the situation ... but as a great Philosopher from Poitou would have said,the road is straight, but the slope is steep.
The qualification threshold for the second round being quite low, can it come to disturb the Macron-Le Pen duel?
The qualification threshold is quite low, because for the moment there is no clear useful voting dynamic to the right of the right.
Marine Le Pen's strategy is to recover a good part of the Zemmour electorate if her candidacy runs out.
Eric Zemmour's strategy is to generate a useful vote from the Le Pen electorate by winning in its dynamics.
It is possible that, remaining in the same low water, the two candidates neutralize each other.
This is not the most likely, however.
We can already see Marine Le Pen going up in the surveys.
The worst scenario for LR would be a Zemmour candidacy largely emptied by the useful vote in favor of Marine Le Pen, but which would hold on to part of the Fillonist, conservative and elderly vote, refusing to switch to the RN.
Benjamin Morel
Moreover, current polls are based on an estimated abstention of 45-50%.
Traditionally, in January-February, the popular classes should enter the game more massively. However, they vote little LR, and a lot RN.
If the right is not going to win new voters, it will be marginalized.
Hoping to reach 15% to go to the second round on a misunderstanding would imply, therefore, the double hypothesis of a massive abstention and a non-simplification of the political landscape to the right of the right… it is a risky bet.
Does it depend on Eric Zemmour's candidacy?
Eric Zemmour's candidacy is a double-edged sword.
If it settles down structurally, it can lower the qualification threshold.
Without this, given its electoral space, and except to bet on a collapse of Emmanuel Macron, it will be very difficult for the right.
The problem of Eric Zemmour is that he also takes points from the LR candidates and that the liberal centrist image of Valérie Pécresse makes him a formidable opponent on a few points necessary for access to the second round.
The worst scenario for LR would be a Zemmour candidacy largely emptied by the useful vote in favor of Marine Le Pen, but which would hold on to part of the Fillonist, conservative and elderly vote, refusing to switch to the RN.
In the event of a second round, Valérie Pécresse-Emmanuel Macron. Does the LR candidate have a chance to win?
For the moment, it is not the best placed.
To beat Emmanuel Macron, the right-wing candidates must be able to count on a double phenomenon.
An abstention, even a rallying, of the electorate of the left first.
However, in this matter, the Pécresse candidacy will have to assume a very radical position resulting from the primary, hardly compatible with the values of a voter Jadot or Mélenchon… A rallying of the popular classes then.
However the position assumed as Thatcherian of the candidate LR risks leading them to a limited enthusiasm ... It is largely these two points which explain that in the surveys of the second round she scores lower than Xavier Bertrand or Marine Le Pen, that maintain a social image.
