The second round of these municipal elections was marked by a major breakthrough for environmentalists. After Grenoble, Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and even Marseille rub off in green. This ballot was also marked by a record abstention and the victory of Perpignan by the National Rally. Martial Foucault, political scientist at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po (CEVIPOF), deciphers for West France the great lessons of this second round.
This second round, like the first, was marked by record abstention. Can the coronavirus crisis be held solely responsible?
The health crisis is an explanation, but it is not the only one. Yes, the postponement of the second round, three months after the first, made the mobilization effort very complex for the candidates. But the executive also has a responsibility; he reaped what he sowed in this total disorganization of the ballot.
Remember, however, that only a third of the electorate was called to vote yesterday; and that this third was mainly in big cities or metropolises. The participation rate in very large cities is still lower than the national average. In addition, in cities where there was no stake, that is, where the result of the first round suggested that the games were over, it was difficult to motivate yourself on the opposing side.
However, there are bursts of mobilization in cities where there was a stake, such as in Toulouse or Marseille.
> Find here our direct dedicated to the second round of municipal elections
A green wave has swept away Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, and a broad coalition led by an ecologist could overturn Marseille. Is this a surprise for you?
We saw this push in the first round, but it is in any case a historic success. Up to now, the victorious benchmark for the Greens has been the European elections of 2019. From now on, it will be the municipal elections of 2020. Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, Poitiers, Annecy: these are not small cities …
Europe-Ecology-The Greens becomes the essential training within the family of the left. Environmentalists demonstrated Sunday, June 28, that when this party is structured and campaigning around very current issues, it manages to overcome this handicap that represented for them the ballot in two rounds.
And then note that these EELV victories will contribute to the renewal of political staff.
Have environmentalists become the main opponents of Emmanuel Macron?
Emmanuel Macron certainly had not imagined that a left-wing candidacy could claim a second presidential run. Marine Le Pen is no longer her only threat for 2022 since Sunday evening, in the event of a single candidacy on the left. Another adversary takes shape.
Politics is certainly not only a matter of arithmetic, but with four families of the left (Europe Ecology The Greens, the PS, the radicals and certainly the French Communist Party), gathered around a single candidacy, one can imagine the threshold of 20% exceeded. And therefore imagine a presence in the second round, when in isolation these components could not claim it.
We can not speak of a total upheaval in the French political landscape, but it still changes the opposition to Emmanuel Macron.
Emmanuel Macron will he not be tempted to green his action for the end of his five-year term?
Certainly. The reshuffle could give him the opportunity. But there has been in several cities an anti-ecological front led by LREM-LR alliances. The Greens will not forget this and will certainly be reluctant to participate in an ecological shift that Emmanuel Macron would be tempted to take in the two years that he has left at the Élysée.
For the Republic on the march, can we talk about slapping?
It’s a very bad sequence for La République en Marche and the President of the Republic. When we see that the voters have systematically placed the 370 LREM lists in 3e or 4e position with less than 15%, we can speak of a sanction vote. I believe that the movement will be far enough from the 10,000 elected officials it hoped to place in the local executives.
How to explain this rout?
This shows that we are not improvising a municipal campaign. No investitures are made four months before the municipal elections; this lack of preparation has led to much dissidence in the big cities.
LREM made another strategic error: that of having concentrated all its efforts on big cities which turned out to be disasters of countryside. I am thinking in particular of Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg. It is not enough to have candidates with atypical profiles to reset the dynamics of the “clearance” of 2014.
Christian Jacob had a smile, but ultimately Les Républicains lose big with Bordeaux, Strasbourg, maybe Marseille?
The Republican party claims 60 to 65% of the cities with more than 9,000 inhabitants. But we especially remember the symbolic defeats of Bordeaux, Strasbourg. Marseille is on hold. There are real difficulties in gaining or maintaining its weight in very large metropolises, where we know that electoral sociology, in recent years, has been completely transformed, to the benefit of environmental or leftist formations.
Is the left just doing well?
By keeping several big cities like Lille, Rennes, Nantes, Dijon, the PS shows that 2017 was not for him the swan song. He returns in the game. But what is also interesting on the socialist side, these are the words of Olivier Faure suggesting that the PS could, in 2022, step aside and support a candidate of an enlarged left.
Is Perpignan not, for the National Rally, the tree that hides the forest?
The National Rally remains a political force almost invisible at the local level. They find it difficult to find candidates who can go to the field at their own expense. The number of their elected representatives should however increase slightly compared to 2014. And for me, Perpignan remains an incredible tour de force and proves that a cracked Republican front is not enough.
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