🗳️New Year, New Elections
Rachida Dati feels pressure from far-right Knafo in Paris, Lécornu eyes March legislative elections following Mercosur censures, and Le Monde poll shows Marine Le Pen falling behind Jordan Bardella
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This week
🗜Dati pressured by far-right Knafo in Paris
🗳️Lécornu eyes March elections following Mercosur censures
⬇️Le Monde poll shows Le Pen falling behind Bardella
🗜Dati pressured by far-right Knafo in Paris
So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s start the year off with what will be the biggest event of the French political calendar: the municipal elections.
With several candidates now confirmed, and everyone attempting to find alliances that can get them over the line and into the second round of the important Parisian mayoral race, things are getting more heated in the final three months of this election.
However, one candidate is finding herself a little more concerned than she had initially hoped.
Rachida Dati, who is currently the centre-right candidate nominated by Les Républicains (LR) despite having been excluded from the party because she chose to stay within the Lecornu II government, was roundly seen as one of the favourites for this election.
Having come close to victory on several occasions, she lost in the last two parisian elections as she found herself unable to overcome the sheer power of the political machine surrounding Anne Hidalgo, acting mayor since 2014.
Coming into this election, having done what she needed to do in order to force herself onto the ticket as the centre-right candidate, and seeming to have even gotten President Macron’s party on board, Rachida Dati was being considered as the favourite.
And yet, things don’t seem as safe as they used to.
Due to her attempting to walk the tightrope between Macron’s Renaissance and the LR, and the lack of trust many in Macronist circles have in her, Dati found herself challenged to her left by the centrist candidate Pierre-Yves Bournazel (REN).
Not only this, but she is now dealing with another challenger to her right, with Sara Knafo (Reconquete) joining Thierry Mariani (Rassemblement National) in running for the Paris mayoralty.
While there will be a longer read on the dynamics of this election, the core of the problem is that Mariani was never considered a serious problem, while Knafo has been creating a massive headache.
Firstly, Sara Knafo represents another example of the far-right poaching votes from the right-wing, with Sara Knafo positioning herself as a right-wing female politician who cares about security and immigration, is against the Islamification of France, and is anti-woke.
In a style that we’ve seen in other countries like the UK and the US, having far-right actors ratcheting up the discourse through the securitisation of topics has a habit of swamping the real problems that countries and communities face and weakening the real responses that can be taken, like a lack of policing or funding for community services.
This leads to Knafo chewing through the fringes of Dati’s electorate, and makes it easier for her to peel away voters who feel that she hasn’t and won’t do enough to prevent what they perceive to be very major issues, regardless of whether these are genuinely the case.
Secondly, Knafo has also left the door open to supporting Dati in a prospective second round, raising the spectre of the fabled “Union of the right” where everyone from the centre-right to the farthest far-right party (Knafo’s Reconquete) would unite and act as one union.
As you dutifully dear readers of mine will remember, the LR is not even close to being united on this, and many genuinely want to avoid this at all costs due to the damage this would cause to the LR, which not only wants to maintain its independence but is afraid that these moves will lose it all moderate supporters within and without.
And yet, that’s effectively what is likely to happen simply because of the fact that Knafo has said she’ll leave the door open to throwing her weight towards Dati. Hell, this could even lead to an over-mobilisation of the left to counterbalance it.
But what are the polls telling us right now?
Currently, Rachida Dati (26% - LR) is in second place behind Emmanuel Grégoire (33% - PS), who leads the pack by a wide margin. Behind them sit Pierre-Yves Bournazel (16% - REN) and Sophia Chikirou (11% - LFI) who currently look like they have a good chance of winning over 10% of the votes and making it into the second round of the municipal elections.
However, the calculations for the second round then become very interesting, as it remains to be seen what coalitions can be built out of this, which we’ll discuss in a future breakdown of this important election.
🗳️Lécornu eyes March elections following Mercosur censures
However, that’s not the only drama going on in Paris; things may get even messier.
La France Insoumise (LFI) and the Rassemblement National (RN), having recently filed motions of censure against Sébastien Lecornu’s government, under the pretext of the adoption of the Mercosur trade treaty that Emmanuel Macron voted against, we may be facing elections soon.
With the debates on these motions expected on Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th January, there is a fairly decent chance that these motions are successful, with the Mercosur agreement that Lécornu himself opposed being simply an excuse to replay the psychodrama from late last year.
Which is why Lecornu has spoken to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez and asked him to begin preparing for potential legislative elections on the same days as the municipal elections: the 15th and 22nd of March.
With the ever-unstable political situation in the Assemblée Nationale, the thinking is the same as last year: any further degradations of the political situation, such as the fall of another government when the government continues to attempt budget discussions, should be responded to with an attempt to reset the political configuration and find a more stable configuration.
And while this is all ongoing, and the government prepares for the worst, the examination of the 2026 budget continues.
⬇️Le Monde poll shows Le Pen falling behind Bardella
To end the week, let’s look at a very interesting poll just released by Le Monde, where respondents appear to have pivoted away from Marine Le Pen and towards Jordan Bardella as the best political candidate for the far-right Rassemblement National.
With the strategy of the party being to pivot to Bardella, pending the near-impossible scenario where Le Pen was allowed to run again, you can argue that this is arguably a political win for the party and shows that they have done this well.
But this is bad news for Le Pen, who continues to hold out hope.
In terms of who respondents believe has the best chance of winning the presidential elections, 49% said that Jordan Bardella had the best chance, with only 18% stating Marine Le Pen.
And in terms of who would make the best President of the French Republic, 30% stated that Bardella would, compared to 22% for Marine Le Pen.
However, there’s a caveat here: in both cases, a sizeable portion of respondents had no opinion between the two, which is, in itself, an indication that maybe neither is seen as particularly impressive by a significant portion of the French population.
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Happy New Year to you Julien.
Seems like French Politics has not changed that much?
I believe my prediction that I made to you a few years back will one day become a reality. Jordan Bardella will one day run La France.
Best of luck to you in the New Year. And Best of Luck to France. You will need it and then some.