Arnaud Benedetti: “Civic disaffection and partisan fragmentation form the basis of our political life”

Arnaud Benedetti is associate professor at Paris-Sorbonne University.

He is editor-in-chief of the political and parliamentary review.

He published

How are the politicians dead?

- The great malaise of power

To discover

• Find all the results of the legislative elections

FIGAROVOX.

- On the evening of the first round of legislative elections, abstention reached 52.49%, a record level under the Fifth Republic.

What is her name?

Should the voting system be changed?

Arnaud BENEDETTI.

-

Abstention is the product of a long-term process.

It is not specific to recent years;

it was initially a trend for several decades, around thirty years with sometimes temporary variations according to the elections, even small participatory revivals, but the reality over time is that of a constant and sustained erosion.

Macronism is, to a large extent, the result of this reflux because it paradoxically thrives on the disaffection of the youngest and large segments of the working and middle classes.

It accelerates it just as much as it feeds on it, but it is not the main cause.

Indeed, the abstention rate for this first round is historically high: it

is the lowest turnout since 1958 in a legislative election.

Abstentionism is both the product of French distrust which downgrades politics after having historically overinvested in it, of the inability of offers to mobilize and to be able to remain representative, of the diffuse perception that power is elsewhere - on a global scale, in international bodies or in large economic conglomerates, for example.

Added to these multiple factors is also a voting system which, for the legislative elections, artificially demonetizes the real weight of certain political forces, such as the National Rally, for example.

abstentionism is at the same time the product of French distrust which downgrades politics after having historically overinvested it, of the inability of offers to mobilize and to be able to remain representative, of the diffuse perception that power is elsewhere - on a global scale, in international bodies or in large economic conglomerates, for example.

Added to these multiple factors is also a voting system which, for the legislative elections, artificially demonetizes the real weight of certain political forces, such as the National Rally, for example.

abstentionism is at the same time the product of French distrust which downgrades politics after having historically overinvested it, of the inability of offers to mobilize and to be able to remain representative, of the diffuse perception that power is elsewhere - on a global scale, in international bodies or in large economic conglomerates, for example.

Added to these multiple factors is also a voting system which, for the legislative elections, artificially demonetizes the real weight of certain political forces, such as the National Rally, for example.

global scale, in international bodies or in large economic conglomerates for example.

Added to these multiple factors is also a voting system which, for the legislative elections, artificially demonetizes the real weight of certain political forces, such as the National Rally, for example.

global scale, in international bodies or in large economic conglomerates for example.

Added to these multiple factors is also a voting system which, for the legislative elections, artificially demonetizes the real weight of certain political forces, such as the National Rally, for example.

Will the Nupes succeed in imposing cohabitation on Emmanuel Macron?

Is it a failure of the President of the Republic?

The hypothesis of cohabitation is at this stage highly improbable, even if the left would have regained color thanks to the electoral agreement that Jean-Luc Mélenchon imposed on his partners.

The vote reserves of the Nupes candidates appear weak and the Nupes, no more than the other offers, is not in a position to claim undisputed leadership.

Moreover, it is behind, narrowly, but behind nevertheless a presidential coalition itself in great difficulty.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon's bet is all glass half full, half empty: he can plead gains, undeniably, and in particular to have restored after years of low water, an electorally virtuous dynamic, but his pressure to radicality relativizes its ability to become an efficient alternative.

Its success consists in creating an optical effect which relativizes the country's ideological shift to the right.

Melenchonism worries as much as it can seduce, it attracts as much as it limits, it imposes a mark but, at the same time, it does not have the reserves of votes apparently essential to succeed in its second round bet.

No one dominates in a world of irreconcilable factions.

Arnaud Benedetti

The President of the Republic, for his part, is becalmed from the start of his five-year term;

unless its potential electorate and in particular its right are over-mobilized, the risk of not having an absolute majority is, as we speak, highly probable.

The political reality of the country is much more in the result of the first round of these legislative elections than in that of the presidential elections: civic disaffection and partisan fragmentation are the basic data of our political life.

No one dominates in a world of irreconcilable factions.

Macron, so far, has benefited from these structural properties;

he now seems to be hampered by them too.

For several weeks, the hypothesis of this blockage had been inscribed in the socio-political cartography;

she appears today

potentially probable today with a possibility of a very relative majority, even unidentifiable on the evening of the second round.

It would obviously be the president's failure first.

Will there be an “anti-Nupes roadblock”?

Perhaps, and this will be the line of action of the presidential majority during the interval between the two rounds.

Although the question of the attitude of the macronists during a Nupes / National Rally duel will have to be observed closely.

How to demonize on one side the Nupes and on the other call to vote for its candidates when they are opposed to a candidate of the National Rally?

The message will inevitably be blurred.

The desire to institutionally constrain the reappointed president is a feeling that percolates through many fringes of opinion.

Arnaud Benedetti

The fact is that some of the conservatives, the Republican electorate, could nevertheless mobilize in certain constituencies during a Together!/Nupes confrontation.

But the paradox is also due to the fact that this electorate, once the probability of a victory for the left has been ruled out, does not mobilize.

We would come out of it with an uncertain assembly… The desire to institutionally constrain the reappointed president is a feeling that percolates through many fringes of opinion.

On the evening of the re-election of Emmanuel Macron, a majority of French people expressed the wish for cohabitation, it should be remembered.

The Republicans won nearly 12% of the vote.

What is this slight rebound due to?

You have to be careful.

This resilience is relative because many Republican figures have also fallen on the electoral “field of honor” (Guillaume Larrivé, Julien Aubert, Sébastien Huygue, etc.).

We have to wait for the second round to measure the Republicans' result in its fair proportion, even if, in fact, they have demonstrated an ability to cushion the traumatic shock of the 2022 presidential election. This is probably due to their local presence.

It goes without saying that the general configuration of the first round puts them back in the game: both through their electorate, which will be able to make the difference in the constituencies where they will be absent, and in the perspective of the future assembly, where they will have a hinge group from the moment there is no absolute majority.

The National Rally is likely to have few deputies when it came in second place in the presidential election.

Why did they fail to rally their voters?

The National Rally is doing rather well, even better than expected.

He is even one of the winners of the evening because he is progressing strongly compared to 2017. First of all Marine Le Pen marginalized Éric Zemmour and Reconquête but above all she is in the process of having a parliamentary group.

It is also nationalizing its offer with spectacular breakthroughs in certain areas of the south-west such as Lot-et-Garonne where the National Rally could place three deputies in the three constituencies of this department.

Obviously the voting method limits the real weight of the National Rally, but the fact remains that this election has a small historical side for the national right which could justify significant gains in terms of seats.

There is still the second round:

what will remain of the "republican dam" of the district?

This is also one of the challenges of this second round.

The procrastination of the macronie in the hours which followed the results demonstrate the accelerated weakening of this one.

Éric Zemmour's failure gives discharge to Marine Le Pen who thus demonstrated that politics is first and foremost sociology before being a media expression.

Arnaud Benedetti

How to interpret the elimination of Éric Zemmour in the first round?

In general, airdrops were punished: Valls among the French abroad, Blanquer in the Loiret, and Zemmour in the Var.

For the latter, it is probably the death knell of his strategy of decompartmentalization of the rights.

Not that the latter is inoperative in the long term, but he did not succeed in embodying it.

The question of the future of a formation in gestation such as Reconquête sans elected, is now that of the report of the media and digital surface inversely proportional to its not very lavish electoral reality.

This failure gives discharge to Marine Le Pen who thus demonstrated that politics is first of all sociology before being a media expression.

Without the first, the second is sterile... or almost.