Regional 2021: the leavers hope to confirm their good results in the second round

Published on : 06/25/2021 – 12:15

The first round of the regional has reinforced them despite a historic abstention: the outgoing presidents of the right and of the PS hope to transform the test, Sunday, June 27, on the occasion of the second round, reinforced by a campaign which has been concentrated this week on local matters.

“The graduates achieved very good scores last Sunday”, reminds AFP Frédéric Dabi, director general of Ifop, who speaks of a “municipalization” of the ballot with a bonus granted to the graduates, as tradition dictates. for mayors.

>> To read also: “Regional 2021: what to remember from the first round of the ballot”

Coming from the “old world” destabilized by the arrival of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, they resisted the ambitions of La République en Marche and the National Rally, two formations which suffered from their lack of territorial anchoring, especially the presidential majority.

Some are clearly favorites: on the right, Xavier Bertrand in Hauts-de-France, Laurent Wauquiez in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, even Valérie Pécresse in Île-de-France. On the left, the socialist Carole Delga in Occitanie and Alain Rousset in New Aquitaine.

>> To see: “Regional 2021: the right wing big winner of the poll?”

But some polls promise to be tight. This is the case in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur (Paca), the only region where the RN came first on Sunday, against six in 2015. A decline which forced Marine Le Pen to launch an appeal to mobilize his electorate who particularly shunned the ballot box on Sunday, amid general indifference (66.7% abstention).

“A victory for the RN in Paca would change the reading of these elections”

In this region, the outgoing LR Renaud Muselier, who had created a psychodrama within his party by approaching LREM before the first round, is neck-to-neck in the polls with RN Thierry Mariani.

“A victory for the RN would change the reading of these regional elections,” Bernard Sananès, president of the Elabe institute, told AFP. It would not only be a historic first, but also a way for Marine Le Pen to initiate a dynamic in the perspective of the presidential election of 2022, even if the hopes of more numerous conquests seem to have been showered in the first round.

>> To see: “Pascal Perrineau: ‘The abstention only partially distorts the result of the regional'”

Chase the national, it comes back at a gallop: ten months before the presidential election, the ballot in Paca will test the strength of the “republican front” after the withdrawal in the interval of the ecologist leader of the union of the left, Jean-Laurent Félizia, to block the road to Thierry Mariani.

“The pattern of 2015 with an electorate who had strongly mobilized to block the RN does not seem to be put in place,” observes Frédéric Dabi. An Ifop poll indicates that only 45% of left-wing voters are ready to vote for the outgoing LR, less than two-thirds who mobilized in 2015 against the RN.

>> To read also: “Regional 2021: on the right, a distance game between Bertrand, Pécresse and Wauquiez”

These regions will definitely have a hard time escaping national issues: Xavier Bertrand, Laurent Wauquiez and Valérie Pécresse will try to use them as a springboard to start the race for the Élysée.

“It is certain that the regions can once again create for the right a dynamic of which it has been deprived since 2017,” political scientist Pascal Perrineau told AFP.

As for the left, it also expects the ballot to give it wings thanks to its union lists, especially in Île-de-France where the ecologist Julien Bayou, allied with Audrey Pulvar and Clémentine Autain, hopes to create the surprise.

“But is there a unitary dynamic? The answer is not obvious”, nuance Pascal Perrineau, who cites as an example the low score in Hauts-de-France of the ecologist Karima Delli, who had however arrived to rally the left in the first round.

>> To read also: “Regional 2021: Karima Delli and the left united in combat in Hauts-de-France”

In other regions, the leavers are careful not to cry victory against an RN who followed them on Sunday: this is the case of the PS Marie-Guite Dufay in Burgundy-Franche-Comté and François Bonneau, also socialist, in Center-Val-de-Loire.

It is not only left-wing leavers who still have to fight to maintain themselves: in the Pays de la Loire, President LR Christelle Morancais is challenged by the ecologist Matthieu Orphelin, reinforced by his alliance between-two- tours with the PS candidate Guillaume Garot.

>> To read also: “Regional 2021: Île-de-France and Pays de la Loire, these regions that the left wants to change”

In the shadow of the regional, the departmental should also be marked by the bonus for graduates and therefore maintain, even consolidate, the right-wing majority which controls 66 of them.

Same scenario in the Overseas Territories with favorite leavers during the second round which will take place in Mayotte, Reunion, Guadeloupe, Guyana and Martinique in order to renew the elected representatives of their departments, regions or local authorities.

With AFP