Benjamin Morel is a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas.
FIGAROVOX. - Manuel Valls has just lost the elections in the 5th constituency of French people living abroad. What does this failure mean?
Benjamin Morel. -
This failure is the reflection of a failed parachute drop.
Talking about foreign constituencies, one gets the impression that there is no localism.
Indeed, given the size of the constituencies, there is not really any local presence, it is not the former deputy-mayor who will shake hands on the markets, of course.
But if you don't have a localism, you still have an implantation.
We are indeed talking about a community in which you have a high degree of acquaintance and where, what is more, you have an abstention which is generally quite significant, so that the electorate mobilized is a relatively limited electorate with real relays of influence within it.
So when you parachute someone into this type of context, you have to be prepared.
You don't parachute him in at the last moment: you arrange so that the outgoing deputy does not run again or is aware that there is going to be a difficulty for him.
Here, that was not the case.
Very clearly, the parachute drop was a late and extremely poorly organized parachute drop.
The results are therefore not that surprising.
The outgoing MP has built his networks within a community he now knows very well, which is why he won quite widely against Manuel Valls, the parachuted candidate.
the parachute drop was a late and extremely poorly organized parachute drop.
The results are therefore not that surprising.
The outgoing MP has built his networks within a community he now knows very well, which is why he won quite widely against Manuel Valls, the parachuted candidate.
the parachute drop was a late and extremely poorly organized parachute drop.
The results are therefore not that surprising.
The outgoing MP has built his networks within a community he now knows very well, which is why he won quite widely against Manuel Valls, the parachuted candidate.
We also note that this analysis applies to the other candidates.
In the same constituency, the candidate Reconquête!
made a fairly honorable score while the National Rally, which has no presence in these constituencies, is in great difficulty, or even has no existence.
If the Élysée had parachuted someone else in the same way, that is to say without taking sufficient measures for the "good" parachuting, the result would not have been different.
Benjamin Morel
This failure says more about how Emmanuel Macron wanted to make a gift, or not, to Manuel Valls, or rather a poisoned gift, than about the ideological position of Manuel Valls.
Is the defeat partly due to what its detractors call its "electoral tourism"?
This accusation is obviously very harmful to his image in France, but this is not necessarily the case in these constituencies.
He is not the first to do electoral tourism.
Many deputies have tried to rebuild their careers there, to build new small fiefdoms.
These are new constituencies, quite recent as they date from 2008. Previously, there were senators representing French people living abroad but there were no deputies.
They were also created partly for this: to have a form of sinecure of constituencies that are relatively easy to conquer, especially for the right, because these are traditionally constituencies rather on the right.
Thus, I am not sure that this element played against him.
If the Élysée had parachuted someone else in the same way, that is to say without taking sufficient measures for the "proper" parachuting, the result would not have been different.
It is not so much his personality in this case that is called into question.
By not holding his stronghold, by dropping it to go electoral tourism, or to try to win the battle for Barcelona, Manuel Valls has weakened himself.
Benjamin Morel
This defeat refers more to another stupidity he made.
He had a stronghold in 2017, he had also held against La République en Marche.
His stronghold was Évry and its constituency.
By not holding his stronghold, by dropping it to go on electoral tourism, or to try to win the battle for Barcelona, he himself has weakened.
A member without a well-kept fiefdom is an extremely fragile member.
He did not master the networks enough.
Beyond the reasons relating to the person, should the defeat of the ex-socialist be understood as a defeat of the camp of the republican and secular left?
It depends on what you mean by defeat.
We can identify three levels of analysis.
The first is that of electoral defeat.
We have a political space that is today abandoned or, more precisely, without a political force to fill it.
Today, the republican and secular center left, whether it is Manuel Valls or the Republican Spring in particular, does not appear to be able to exist within Parliament.
The second degree of analysis is that of their influence on the majority.
We talked about that a lot this week.
This political current has actually obtained very few constituencies or constituencies that are difficult to win;
that of Manuel Valls was.
The constituency of Jean-Michel Blanquer is also difficult to win, even if it is not quite the same trend, it is the same substrate.
Blanquer's parachute drop is a complicated parachute drop.
I'm not talking about the Republican Spring which won a constituency which is itself difficult to win with a set aside of its headliners.
The center left electorate, and in particular the Macronian center left, is actually quite vallsist.
Benjamin Morel
It is a political trend which one would have thought would weigh relatively heavily within the majority, because it is rather this software that marked the end of the last five-year term and which seems relatively marginalized within the majority. given the nominations, and even at the level of the government.
The third level of analysis is that of the significance of these political ideas in public opinion.
This is a point to qualify.
The centre-left electorate, and in particular the Macronian centre-left, is actually quite vallsist: it remains quite liberal on economic subjects, and at the same time it is very republican and secular, it is attached to the figure of the state , to authority, to national unity, to secularism, to the fight against communitarianism.
The centre-left electoral space is rather won over to all of these ideas, therefore.
The left which did not go to Mélenchon and which hesitates between the PS dissident vote and the Together! candidates, this left which voted in large part for Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and which returned in a substantial part to a Macron vote in 2022,
this left has values much closer to those of Manuel Valls than to those of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, who could appear to be more libertarian, or in any case, less republican.
It is rather an electorate that is on the line of the speech of Les Mureaux than on the line of the presidential speeches of the 2017 campaign. The electoral space continues to exist, this electorate remains structured by these major ideological determinants and these ideas are today marginalized today within the majority and will probably be within the future Assembly.
The question is to know what will happen to this vallsist electorate in the next elections, intermediate but above all presidential and legislative elections at the end of the five-year term.
Benjamin Morel
NUPES is in the lead with 27.24% and the dissident LREM candidate obtains 25.39% of the vote. Is there a political space left for republican socialism?
This electorate is poorly represented today in Macronie even if, by default, they voted for Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election.
The question is to know what will happen for this electorate in the next elections, intermediate but above all presidential and legislative elections at the end of the five-year term.
If Emmanuel Macron cannot stand for re-election, which he cannot do for legal reasons except for a modification of the Constitution, if ever LREM is no longer quite this structuring force, there will be a political space and it will be fatally occupied by someone.
It can only be with difficulty by Jean-Luc Mélenchon;
he will no longer be able, by definition, to be so by Emmanuel Macron.
This space is not gigantic but weighs between 10 and 15% of voters, which does not
is not negligible.
Caricaturing it in broad strokes, this space is substantially very vallsist.
He and his possible candidates have not finished existing and weighing in political life.