There will be fewer three-way races than expected. While the deadline for submitting candidacies for the second round of the legislative elections has just passed, this Tuesday, July 2 at 6 p.m., not all of the more than 300 possible three-way races will take place this Sunday.
Many candidates, starting with those from the New Popular Front, announced their withdrawal while they were placed in third position, in accordance with the instructions issued by the left-wing alliance and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the evening of the first round. On the side of the outgoing majority, the instructions were variable geometry, which led to divergent positions depending on the constituencies.
To produce these maps, Le Parisien relied on the declarations of retention or withdrawal of the candidates of the outgoing majority, the NFP, LR, various left, various right and the center. We also started from the assumption that the National Rally would maintain all its candidates who came third, with the exception of Ludivine Daoudi in the first constituency of Calvados, Sébastien Meurant in Val-d’Oise and Sylvie Jouart in Haute-Corse.
Wave of withdrawals from the NFP, but also from the outgoing majority
More than 300 three-way or four-way races were possible after the first round. In 129 of them, the New Popular Front came in third place. The candidates concerned therefore probably withdrew with the aim of blocking the RN in the second round when Jordan Bardella’s party came out on top.
In the majority, on the other hand, positions have been shifting in the hundred or so constituencies concerned. Long a candidate, Dominique Faure, the Minister Delegate for Local Authorities and Rural Affairs of France, finally announced this Tuesday at midday the withdrawal of her candidacy in the 10th constituency of Haute-Garonne.
Anne-Laure Babault (2nd in Charente-Maritime) and Clément Tonon (1st in Dordogne) had also announced their continued participation in the second round at first, as had Naïma Sifer in Essonne, before backpedaling. In total, 79 candidates from the majority had publicly announced their withdrawals this Wednesday at midday. Overall, Le Parisien counted 217 withdrawals at the same time, pending the official list from the Ministry of the Interior.
A second-place candidate also appears in our map: Hella Kribi-Romdhane (NFP) announced her own leader shortly after the first round in the 6th constituency of Essonne.
The majority remains in around fifteen triangular races
But withdrawal is not always the preferred solution. In 65 constituencies, the RN came in third place and will probably hold on. On the outgoing majority side, at least 14 candidates have announced their intention to hold on to the second round, even though they came in third place.
Gilles Bourdouleix, LR-Ciotti candidate in the 5th constituency of Maine-et-Loire, finally announced on Tuesday that he had finally filed his candidacy, “at the call of many supporters after the announcement of my withdrawal and in the face of the unnatural alliances that are being formed”. He will therefore face a candidate from the NFP – who tried to withdraw her candidacy, after the announcement of Bourdouleix’s, in vain – and a candidate from the presidential majority.
Finally, it should be noted that in the 4th constituency of Vendée, the majority candidate and the NFP candidate, respectively third and fourth in the first round, are maintaining their position in a four-way race.
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