Although they elected an ardent defender of Europe as their president, French people are poorly mobilised over the European elections, where 33 French election lists are set to challenge each other on May 26th, reports EURACTIV France.
For the first time since France elects MEPs, 33 lists have officially been published according to the French Interior Minister. In theory, this means that the French electorate will be facing 33 ballot sheets, supposing all lists can manage to print enough ballots. Yet, like in many EU counties, the French continue to have a high abstention rate in European elections.
This quick surge of political surplus can be translated into the current representative unease in France: a divide between political parties and citizens is growing wider and is motivating new extreme-leaning candidates. Only half of the lists reveal moderate political parties.
In 1999, the last European ballot that took place in a single constituency saw twenty lists go up against each other. In 2014, during previous elections, the ballot organised itself around eight European parliament constituencies, which makes things difficult to compare.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National and Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche (LREM) gather the most voting intentions and are far ahead of all other political parties in opinion polls.
For several months, LREM has been coming out ahead of this duel. But this week, the RN had more voting intentions for the first time, according to a study by Ifop for Paris Match, CNews and Sud Radio. Another opinion poll conducted by the OpinionWay Institute found that 24% of the voting intentions were in favour of Le Pen’s far-right and anti-European party, compared to 21% in favour of the pro-EU LREM.
The duel between RN and LREM on European issues should take a huge turn on the ballot. As a fervent defender of European integration, Macron made sure that he and Le Pen do not see eye-to-eye on the issue.
The election results should therefore either sanction or commend Macron’s pro-European policies, with the risk of seeing the ballot morph into a sanction vote on the government’s policies. The election results will also give LREM legitimacy or not, to impose itself as a new force within the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the European Parliament’s centrist group, which is currently being recomposed.
For its part, the RN intends to reiterate its success at the previous EU election in 2014. At a European level, cooperation between the RN and its political group, the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), is not the party’s top priority as it always favours a vote in opposition to Europe, without looking to coordinate with allies from other countries.
Behind the leading duo, the traditional parties are presenting themselves in different shapes following the 2017 presidential election fiasco.
The list of the right-wing party Les Républicains, led by François-Xavier Bellamy, is currently polling at 15% of voting intentions.
Other lists, meanwhile, record voting intentions below 10%, such as green party Europe Écologie Les Verts (9%), and left-wing parties, including La France insoumise (8.5 %) and PS/Place publique (5%).
Nicolas-Dupont Aignan from right-wing party Debout le France, announced his wish to join the European parliament group of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).
The left-wing party of Benoît Hamon (Génération.s) and the French communist party (PCF) all average voting intentions that are lower than 5%, meaning they will not meet the minimum threshold defined by the French electoral law.
Surprise invitees of the European vote, the ‘gilets jaunes’ will finally be represented within three different lists, following various weeks of uncertainty on the movement’s adaptation to politics.
Although this weekend marked the weakest ‘gilets jaunes’ mobilisation since the start of the movement, the Interior Minister unveiled the totality of the lists that will participate in the ballot on 4 May. These include “Evolution citoyenne” (citizen evolution) of Chrisophe Chalençon, “Alliance jaune” (yellow alliance) by singer Francis Lalanne and "Mouvement pour l’initiative citoyenne".