The plan is not going as planned. Initially, the municipal elections were to allow Emmanuel Macron to anchor his young party on the ground and to win symbolic victories in big cities like Paris or Lyon. On arrival, it is urgent to move on and forget about this ballot about to turn at La Bérézina for La République en Marche. “Politically, the President does not expect national lessons from the ballot, says one in the entourage of Emmanuel Macron. He will observe as a Republican head of state the overall lessons of this election.For the time being, he is especially pleased that the second round can take place after his suspension last March in the face of the growing power of the coronavirus epidemic in the country. “It is still a victory of the deconfinement and a retreat of the virus that we must salute since it allows this second round to stand“, Assures an adviser. For Emmanuel Macron, Sunday’s election would be “a victory for French democracy».
However, beyond considerations linked to the vitality of the electoral process in the country, the lessons of the second round will also be political for the President of the Republic. Firstly because, for want of being able to take away from the big cities, LREM wants to cross the bar of 10,000 councilors elected on the evening of the ballot. A goal within reach of the ballot since the country has nearly 560,000 municipal councilors. Apart from the elected officials rallied to LREM since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, his party starts from zero and can therefore only display an increase on the evening of the results, however weak it may be.
«It is a ballot which must allow the majority to renew mandates and which must allow LREM to bring elected representatives of the presidential formation into local executives for the first time“, Underlines a close relation of the Head of State. Paradoxically, one of the candidates most watched by Emmanuel Macron does not belong to LREM. A candidate for Le Havre, Édouard Philippe never took his card there. His future as prime minister, and therefore as leader of the majority, nevertheless depends on his result.
The Philippe case pending
Elected Sunday evening, he would strengthen his position while a major reshuffle is announced. “A politician who wins an election is like Asterix when he takes magic potion. After he is stronger“Slips a close friend of Edouard Philippe. But beaten, it would open the door to a change of prime minister for the last phase of the quinquennium. Committed to his campaign in Le Havre, he nevertheless considered a third scenario: elected but nevertheless thanked.
«My goal is to be mayor of Le Havre, quickly. It can happen very quickly. If it happens very quickly, it will be fine“, He assured during a debate on France 3 Normandy. And around him, we are already starting to draw up an inventory of his three years at Matignon. “We have started to repair the country. Labor law reform has been around for fifteen years, we did it. The reform of the SNCF, the same. We did it. Deterrent taxation, we have put an end to it…“, We list in Matignon.
Anyway, Edouard Philippe takes a dim view of the ecological shift that is looming against the backdrop of the Citizen’s Climate Convention. The answer of Emmanuel Macron to the proposals of these citizens drawn by lot will also depend on the score of the Greens in the municipal elections. Especially if they win new cities. For now, the entourage of the Head of State is put into perspective. “The green push, we observe it in the big cities. But it’s not all of Francesays an advisor. And then, if there is a push, it remains to be translated into a more traditional ballot of national scope.»
But in the end, whatever the results Sunday evening, Emmanuel Macron does not want to linger. Monday, the day after the election, he will receive the members of the Citizens’ Convention at the Élysée Palace to explain to them what he has learned from their proposals. Then he will fly to Germany for his first “face-to-face” meeting with Angela Merkel since the start of the health crisis. The next day, he will attend the G5 Sahel summit in Mauritania. Plenty of things to forget about the municipal elections.
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