2022 French legislatives

[Antonio the Sixth]

Based on Tony's map on the presidential election thread, I tend to think they should have given more to EELV in the Savoies - strong territory for a pro-European and ecologist left. But well, a few changes might come but this seems to be the decision

Looks like my constituency will have a PCF candidate! Hilarious. Obviously there's no shot of winning there, though I'd be curious to see how well the NUPES^TM can do there. Last time FI got 10.73%, PS 4.32%, and two ecologists together got 3.47%. So in a decent setting, a united left candidate should be able to get over 20%. Probably still not enough for the runoff unless LR and RN really screw each other over.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's really happening. Wow.



Good on all parties involved for actually demonstrating some maturity (or at the very least, survival instinct) and doing the rational thing that they've failed to do oh so many times before. I'm not exactly happy that Mélenchon is our standard bearer, but that was inevitable given the outcome of the first round. I think I've given my thoughts on Mélenchon, and it is true that I would have voted for Macron over him as president, but when it comes to the legislatives, the situation is obviously different. It's not about putting him in charge of foreign policy (even if NUPES somehow miraculously won a majority, that majority would be reliant on PS and other pro-EU, pro-NATO forces who wouldn't let him get away with his Putin sympathies, not to mention that the President retains a prominent role on foreign policy even in cohabitations). It's about maintaining the French left as a major force in French politics - one capable, ideally, of stopping Macron's neoliberal agenda in its tracks, and if not, to provide a strong voice in opposition to it and in favor of social justice and redistribution. Against all odds, I believe we have a chance of achieving that. Let's f**king do this.

Send NUPES to the Palais Bourbon!

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, I was taking a look at the constituencies won by NUPES parties back in 2017 and seeing how they were apportioned among the parties this time. Corsica and DTOMs don't seem to be included in the agreement (even if they were, politics in these areas is such a clusterf**k that such an agreement wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on), so we're looking at 546 constituencies. Of those, 54 were won by parties now affiliated with NUPES - just under 10%.

PS won 27 seats. They're keeping 21 of those, which is frankly kind of a slap in the face for the party and a sign that FI drove a hard bargain. In general, there are plausible rationales for the 6 seats that got dropped, but in at least some cases it is guaranteed to cause tensions. Here's a short rundown.
- Paris-15: This is the one that got the most attention. It was won by the PS' George Pau-Langevin in 2017, but then resigned in 2020 to take up an administrative job. The subsequent by-election was again won by the PS' Lamia El Aaraje, but then her election got thrown out by the Constitutional Council because of improprieties involving other candidate (didn't I tell you that the CC's policy when it comes to throwing out elections is braindead and ripe for abuse??). El Aaraje is an incumbent in all but name, but she's been denied her seat and Faure apparently decided she was worth sacrificing. She's likely to run as a dissident and frankly, in this case, I think she has every right to.
- Val-d'Oise-8: DSK's old seat, which has being held since then by his protégé François Pupponi. Pupponi was elected under the PS banner in 2017, but left the party in 2018 and eventually joined the FBM galaxy. So in this case there wasn't much for the PS to defend.
- Ardèche-2: Kind of a similar story here. The elected PS deputy, Olivier Dussopt, defected to the Macronie and actually got a minor cabinet post for his troubles. The difference being that since he has to resign, his substitute Michèle Victory took the seat instead, and from all I can glean she's been a loyal PS backbencher since. Maybe she's not planning to run again, but if she was, it's again a fairly remarkable shunning on FI's part.
- Loire-1: Won for the PS by Régis Juanico in 2017, who then defected to Génération.s. It doesn't seem he's running again, though, so this seat is just going to EELV. Given that G.s has been allied with EELV since the presidential election, that seems like a fair trade.
- Pyrénées-Atlantiques-3: Won by David Habib in 2017. Habib is running again, but he opposes the NUPES and it sounds like he's running again under the Macronist banner, so it makes sense that the PS gets no shot there. Interestingly though, they're instead getting the 4th constituency just vacated by Jean Lassalle. That could be a decent pickup opportunity.
- Deux-Sèvres-2: This one is easy. It's Delphine Batho's seat - she held it for the PS in 2017, but then left the party to become the leader of... Génération Ecologie, of all things? Well, that seat was given to GE under the agreement with EELV and its partners, so we can assume she'll be running again.
So overall, PS saved almost all of its real incumbents, with only two serious slights and one self-imposed rejection. Still, 21 seats is not a lot, so they'd have to hope that some of the constituencies they managed to bargain for are winnable if they want to hope to do better than in 2017.

Without surprise, FI kept all its 17 wins from 2017. It looks like they're ceding Seine-Saint-Denis-2 to the PCF, which confused me, but that's actually just a branding thing. The incumbent there, Stéphane Peu, is a PCF member who ran and was elected under the FI banner in 2017. That's rather unusual since 2017 was the peak of the fight between PCF and Mélenchon, but Peu apparently had enough of a good relationship with FI to get this favor. And it sounds that now he'll be able to run as a communist under the NUPES banner.

As for PCF itself, it was also able to keep the 10 seats it won on its own in 2017.

Finally, EELV was completely wiped out in 2017. One of its members, Eric Alauzet, defected to Macron and was able to keep his seat that way, while the others lost their seats. This time around, EELV seems pretty confident it will be able to form a group based on the seats they got from the NUPES agreement. Interestingly, one of those seats is actually Alauzet's (Doubs-2), so this might well be a revenge for the party he betrayed.

There are also 5 constituencies where candidates affiliated with the left but not with NUPES won in 2017. It will be interesting where left-wing voters in these constituencies end up going. First, we have the three PRG survivors: Jeanine Dubié (Hautes-Pyrénées-2) and Sylvia Pinel (Tarn-et-Garonne-2) will both face FI challengers, while Olivier Falorni (Charente-Maritime-1) will face an opponent from EELV. There's the MDC's Christian Hutin (Nord-13), who will also face FI. And finally there's Manuel Valls' old constituency of Essonne-1. After he quit to launch his embarrassing run for the Barcelona mayorship, the seat was inherited by Francis Chouat, another PS defector to the Macron nebula. He, too, will face a FI challenger.

[Antonio the Sixth]

His English Wikipedia says that Christian Hutin announced he's not running again, is that incorrect / has it been rescinded?

Oh, sorry, I must have missed it. I actually relied mostly on Wikipedia for this rundown, so by all means you should trust Wikipedia over me.

It seems Dussopt is running, so, Victory is actually banned from running by law (you cannot run against the person you replaced).

Speaking of which, didn't know that either. Wow, that's a f**ked up law. Sorry to see her screwed over like that by a traitorous running mate.

I guess of the 6 lost PS seats, they fall neatly into 3 categories then: 2 who got screwed over by dumb laws (El Aaraje, Victory), 2 who turned traitor (Pupponi, Habib), and 2 who went over to other NUPES parties (Juanico, Batho). I think the PS should still have gotten to run their candidates in the first 2 categories, but oh well.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The official NUPES convention just concluded, with a lengthy but impassioned speech by Mélenchon. Whatever else I have to say about the guy, he is a truly superb orator. Starting with a Paul Eluard quote and ending with a Victor Hugo one - like any self-respecting French leftist, he has a real sense of the history and culture he belongs to. And if he manages to build NUPES into the leading opposition in the coming legislature and then passes the torch to a new generation to lead us back to power, he will have earned his spot in that history. Not all great figures of the French left were good people (Mitterrand sure wasn't), and not all of them were in government (Jaurès never was). I don't need to like Mélenchon, but I can learn to respect him if he plays his part at this point in history.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Whatever you can say about the esoteric debate of what constitutes "reverse racism" and whatnot, it should be obvious to everyone that these aren't good things to say and that attempts to justify and excuse this kind of behavior isn't a great way to win over a majority of French people (who, remember, haven't been inundated with the kind of Discourse that leads people to make excuses for this sh*t on the left in the way much of the US has been). I don't know if NUPES has a chance to win, but I know making this the big topic of the campaign is a surefire way to lose.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, France Inter put out some detailed and user-friendly maps of NUPES candidates by district and share of the votes received by the total NUPES candidates in the presidential elections. I used them (along with the map of 2017 results) to compile some data on the constituencies NUPES candidates are most likely to do well in and which party is likely to benefit.

NUPES candidates over 50%: 26 seats (21 in IdF)
of which 16 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 10 by other parties

• FI: 21 (10 FI, 2 PS, 6 LREM, 3 Right)
• PCF: 3 (all PCF)
• PS: 1 (PS)
• Gs: 1 (LREM)

NUPES candidates between 40% and 50%: 52 seats (23 in IdF)
of which 5 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 47 by other parties

• FI: 32 (2 FI, 1 Valls, 28 LREM, 1 Right)
• EELV: 12 (all LREM)
• PS: 4 (1 PS, 3 LREM)
• PCF: 2 (all PCF)
• Gs: 1 (Right)
• GE: 1 (LREM)

NUPES candidates between 35% and 40%: 37 seats (15 in IdF)
of which 4 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 33 by other parties

• FI: 18 (1 FI, 16 LREM, 1 DLF)
• EELV: 9 (1 PS, 8 LREM)
• PS: 7 (2 PS, 5 LREM)
• GE: 2 (all LREM)
• PCF: 1 (Right)

NUPES candidates between 30% and 35%: 109 seats (20 in IdF)
of which 7 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 102 by other parties

• FI: 68 (1 FI, 1 MDC, 56 LREM, 10 Right)
• EELV: 16 (1 PRG, 13 LREM, 2 Right)
• PS: 14 (4 PS, 10 LREM)
• PCF: 5 (2 PCF, 2 LREM, 1 Right)
• Gs: 5 (4 LREM, 1 Right)
• GE: 1 (LREM)

First, it's striking how little correlation there is between 2022 presidential vote and 2017 legislative vote. Of the 54 constituencies that elected NUPES candidates in 2017, only 25 where in constituencies where its candidates won over 35% of the presidential vote (less than a quarter of the 115 such constituencies), while a full 22 were in constituencies where these candidates couldn't break 30%. This implies both good and bad news for the alliance: it means it has a high ceiling as well as a low floor. It could gain over 90 seats if it brings out its own presidential voting base to vote and stops its opponents from consolidating in the runoff (of these 90 most likely pickups, 83 would come at LREM and its allies' expense, requiring them to make up a lot of ground elsewhere in order to keep their majority. On the other hand, if things go really badly, it could stand to lose over half of its incumbents. What this mostly shows, though, is that legislatives are idiosyncratic and that turnout, runoff dynamics, and local candidate strength can have a major impact on the outcome.

Also interesting is the breakdown of constituencies across the 4 major members of NUPES, all of which have supposedly been promised the ability to elect enough MPs to form a parliamentary group. For FI this obviously isn't in question, as it got the lion's share of winnable seats. 13 of its 16 incumbents are from constituencies NUPES presidential candidates won over 35% in. Even if it were to lose everywhere else, just picking up the constituencies where they won over 50% would guarantee them 21 seats. These grow to 53, 71 and finally 139 as you gradually lower the threshold, making up 68%, 62% and 62% of the total NUPES seats, respectively. So in general, the safer the constituency, the more likely FI kept it for itself - kind of a backward logic if Mélenchon wants to claim the role of the one expanding the coalition forward.

The other parties obviously don't fare nearly as well. The PS is starting with the most incumbents, of course, but defending many of them might be a challenge: only 11 of the 27 constituencies won by the PS in 2017 had NUPES break 30% of the vote. The other 16 might well find themselves in tough races, although ancestral left-wing strength and a strong personal profile could still carry them to victory. On the plus side, PS has 8 fairly plausible gains in places NUPES candidates won over 40% of the vote. PCF also has a solid 11 incumbents, 5 of which are pretty safe in constituencies where NUPES candidates got over 40% of the vote. Mostly those are all the really safe seats PCF is getting, though. Expanding a bit, in the 30-40% range, PCF is defending 2 more incumbents and potentially picking up 4 seats. Still, this only puts it back at 11, short of the 15 needed for a group. Finally, EELV has no incumbents at all, but got a relatively more favorable deal (probably a product of Jadot's somewhat more respectable presidential result). They potentially stand to win 21 constituencies where NUPES candidates got over 35%, enough to form a group, and even as many as 37 if you shift the threshold further down to 30%. That also doesn't include EELV's smaller allies, Gs and GE. The former of them got a remarkably sweet deal, with 7 candidacies in constituencies where NUPES was above 30%. The latter, meanwhile, is running in 4.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If these polls and projections are correct Macron may only have a narrow majority and by far the largest opposition to him will be from NUPES. Does it actual matter for French politics over the next few years if the left (NUPES) is the main opposition in the NA and the LR and RN are way behind...or does anyone care?

I mean everyone expects NUPES to fall apart post-election, unless they win of course. Therefore, opposing Macron would be a fragmented front, with nobody like LR/UDI from last time who could command a large share of the chamber against him. This is part of the reason why Harris still splits the NUPES parties projected seats in their model I suspect.

Staying united in opposition is actually a lot easier than staying united in governing. All of these parties are overwhelmingly likely to oppose Macron's agenda, at least on economic matters (there's definitely a lot of potential overlap on foreign policy and on some - but far from all - social issues, but despite whatever you'll hear, economic issues are still the most important in structuring French political alignments), so I could see some relatively smooth sailing for NUPES in the coming legislature. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that they'll run together come 2027.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What's this about the Interior Ministry not allowing the name NUPES to appear on the ballot and counting all the left-wing parties' results separately instead? Does Mélenchon have an actual complaint here or did he just screw up the paperwork?

There is no paperwork, labelling is a decision sorely in the hands of the Interior Ministry and the prefectures.

It's funny how France is in many ways basically a banana republic, yet has managed (so far) to avoid any major democratic crisis. Inshallah that continues.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Le Monde has a map of potential battlegrounds https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/06/02/elections-legislatives-entre-la-gauche-et-la-majorite-259-points-chauds-en-cartes_6128695_823448.html

[Antonio the Sixth]

Amazing. This legislative vote is off to a good start, let's hope we can keep it up the next two Sundays.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looking att potential transfers RE will win all ten seats in the second round?!

There are 11 seats. NUPES has a shot in one of them (the 9th, representing North Africa), but who knows. The 8th (Mediterranean countries including Israel) will also be close between REN and the right-wing (and Likud-affiliated, as Hash pointed out) incumbent. The other 9 should be easy Ensemble (or Ensemble-dissident, in Vojetta's case) holds barring something crazy, yeah.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow, good on the Council of State. Given how deferential the judiciary usually is to the executive, I actually wasn't expecting that.

Looking forward to tracking NUPES' results on Sunday, then!

[Antonio the Sixth]

...and in today's NUPES-related judicial news (what a time to be alive), a tribunal struck down the PS' agreement with NUPES arguing that based on the party's statutes they should have submitted it for approval by the membership. From what I can see here, it doesn't sound like it will change anything to the actual candidacies the PS put up. However, it might remove the party's ability to expel PS members who decided to run as dissidents. Which tbh I'm not sure if the PS was trying to do either way, they traditionally take a pretty soft hand about this stuff.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The youth being on the right side.

NUPES is historic and the dream coalition.

This is what "being leftist" is like.

So Being leftist is a "vibe" and not implementing actual policy ?, sounds about right.

Vibes are a more powerful electoral tool than implementing actual policy.

Well if being leftist is getting one or two extra muppets to rant in the legislature rather than actually changing society sure NUPES is great. In terms of changing french society, not so much.

The alternative to NUPES was allowing egos to take precedence (like the presidential election) and running separately, making a small minority of second rounds and having no chance at power. Whatever you think of Melenchon and allying with him, with the creation of NUPES they will reach vastly more second rounds. While they almost certainly won't win a majority, NUPES is the far more serious approach to changing French society than what the left has been doing since 2017.

Yeah, I have no idea what ostensibly left-leaning NUPES critics actually want. It's pretty easy to say all the ways in which it's not ideal, but what part of it would be improved by all the left-wing parties running separately? That's the surefire way of ensuring that the French left becomes completely irrelevant in the political landscape. Which I guess it's fine if you believe in the kind of bogus centrism Macron is peddling, but terrible if you actually think working people in French deserves a voice that isn't rabidly xenophobic and reactionary.

[Antonio the Sixth]

- In a similar vein will Melenchon and Le Pen win in Round 1? Melenchon should sweep his seat, but turnout in urban Marseilles is such that more than 50% is probably needed. Similarly, we have a grain of salt that suggests Le Pen is close to the majority threshold, but she also likely needs a bit more that 50% to lock up a First round victory.

Mélenchon isn't running for reelection this year, as he chose to instead dedicate himself fully to the nationwide NUPES campaign (this has concrete implications in terms of allotted speaking time, so that might be part of the consideration here). Will be interesting to see how well NUPES does in his constituency, though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Just read an interview of Alexis Corbière, the spokesperson for NUPES, which said that the inspiration for NUPES was the Portuguese Geringonça. He added that Portugal showed that "there was a country that resisted" when there "liberals" controlling the rest of Europe.

Summary of the interview: https://observador.pt/2022/06/11/__trashed-655/

I'm sorry, but this guy looks like a farmer talking about aerospace engineering. He clearly doesn't know what he's talking about, as, it's now clear, that the "Geringonça" was the kiss of death for the leftwing in Portugal. Not the best inspiration for this alliance, IMO.

I mean it's obviously a huge oversimplification (as is almost any time any politician talks about another country's politics), but the fact does remain that Portugal is better off now because it disregarded many of the Troika's recommendations back in 2015, and that is something worth keeping in mind when we view EU fiscal agreements as sacrosanct.

(FWIW, I'm not a fan of the way NUPES framed its position on the EU. There are sometimes valid reasons to disobey EU rules - and France does do that currently on a whole slew of issues, as does Germany and plenty other "virtuous" countries - but putting it into writing and broadcasting it to the world serves no purpose except needlessly alienating people you still need on your side and ultimately undermine efforts to improve the EU. So I wish Mélenchon hadn't been so dogmatic on this point, but if he wasn't dogmatic he wouldn't be Mélenchon.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Interesting. Really terrible result for Ensemble, but SP&M is a weird place, and Macronism tanking in the DTOMs is no surprise at this point. Sounds like NUPES might have a decent shot in the runoff, but again, so many unknowns apply here.

But that's the point, I believe that many on the left, saw the Geringonça experiment as model and something that worked and, sure it's oversimplification, like you said, but the issue is that, and it's a very interesting discussion, did it gave positive results? It's off topic from this board of course, but I'm not sure the country improved, because the PS used the left and, in the end, this "hopefull" experiment for the left, turned out to be it's ultimate downfall.

I mean, the electoral fortunes of the Portuguese left are one thing, but I think everyone can agree that the Geringonça government did a far better job of stirring the Portuguese economy compared to the other PIIGS countries that went through devastating austerity programs. Which was clearly Corbières' point here. Again, as a parallel it has obvious limits, but I don't think we need to overinterpret it either.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Huh, so all around weird and messy results in the DTOMs so far. I have to say though, I did expect Ensemble candidates to bomb given Macron's scores in the presidential election. The fact that a few of them are holding out so well is notable, though who knows if it means anything for the metropole. NUPES is also doing fairly well so far.

[Antonio the Sixth]

IPSOS-Sopra Steria estimates Ensemble and NUPES tied at 25.2%. RN at 18.9%. The right at 13.7%.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nationwide results: 55% counted

24.1% Ensemble
21.8% NUPES
21.7% RN
11.3% LR
  3.9% DG
  3.8% Reconquête !
  3.1% DD
  2.3% Ecologists
  1.9% Regional parties
  1.5% DC
  1.2% Sovereign parties
  3.4% Others

47.3% Turnout

So basically an overperformance for RN and LR? That is certainly not what I expected.

France has a massive counting bias in favor of smaller municipalities and "peripheral" areas. Now we're at 80% counted and still nothing has come in from Paris and the Petite Couronne. Until they start reporting, you can't really discuss the national results.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Interesting results. Both Ensembles and NUPES underperformed slightly, but are well within the margin of error. Particularly pitiful result for Ensemble, as they're barely ahead (according to the Interior Ministry's results - Le Monde, which uses more sensible categories, actually has NUPES slightly ahead) but their result is historically weak for a presidential party. RN didn't really overperform its polling, but the fact that it didn't underperform them is notable, and might have major implications for the runoff. The traditional right is the only force that overperformed (although even then, just by a couple points when all is said and done) and they will remain a presence in the coming legislature, which was far from a given.

The runoffs will be a mess. I've been spending the evening compiling a map of the runoff situations in each constituency, and I've had to use so many different colors that even I can't keep track. I'll have to refine it and use cruder categories to have any chance of making sense of it, but either way, that means this is still wide open. It seems there's a real chance of depriving Ensemble of an absolute majority, though, which would make the next 5 years a lot more interesting than we might have expected (in addition to being, frankly, better for democracy, since it's patently obvious today that Ensemble has no national mandate to govern). See you next Sunday, I guess.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Was the 25.66% disappointing for the Nupes?
It's smaller than the sum the parties that built the Nupes had in 2017.

No it's not? PS, PCF and FI together had 21.19% while the loose "Ecologist" label (which was scattered between EELV and a bunch of other parties, some of which are with Macron now) got 4.3%, so at most we're talking 25.49%. But that's obviously not a sound way to count. The aggregate left+ecologists today is at 32.03%, compared to 27.56% in 2017.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Interesting results. Both Ensembles and NUPES underperformed slightly, but are well within the margin of error. Particularly pitiful result for Ensemble, as they're barely ahead (according to the Interior Ministry's results - Le Monde, which uses more sensible categories, actually has NUPES slightly ahead) but their result is historically weak for a presidential party. RN didn't really overperform its polling, but the fact that it didn't underperform them is notable, and might have major implications for the runoff. The traditional right is the only force that overperformed (although even then, just by a couple points when all is said and done) and they will remain a presence in the coming legislature, which was far from a given.

The runoffs will be a mess. I've been spending the evening compiling a map of the runoff situations in each constituency, and I've had to use so many different colors that even I can't keep track. I'll have to refine it and use cruder categories to have any chance of making sense of it, but either way, that means this is still wide open. It seems there's a real chance of depriving Ensemble of an absolute majority, though, which would make the next 5 years a lot more interesting than we might have expected (in addition to being, frankly, better for democracy, since it's patently obvious today that Ensemble has no national mandate to govern). See you next Sunday, I guess.

Are you able to ahare what your seat by seat analysis concluded?

I'm still putting the finishing touches to the map (it's taken much longer than I hoped due to both the need to constantly readapt my legend to account for various fringe cases, and other real-life stuff getting in the way). Should be able to post it either tonight or tomorrow.

In the meantime, Oryx's is very informative too (though I personally dislike the use of small dots like that).

[Antonio the Sixth]

And just like that we get a seat estimate. This doesn't have any percentage figures because, well those don't exactly matter.



Looking back at the last cycle, it seems we will be getting one of these from every major outlet. Though looking at this 2017 data, I am skeptical of their accuracy when compared to the pre-round 1 models which seem to have been within the ballpark of the final results. Was it just hype, or an undershooting of more reliable LR+ older voters...

2017 was a massive case of the "rebalancing effect" at work, where the presidential party does very well in the first round of the legislative election, which prompted talks of a massive landslide in the runoff, but then in the runoff opposition voters get scared and turn out a bit more while presidential voters demobilize - hence resulting in a more balanced result than the first round would have suggested. 2007 is the other big example of that phenomenon, and I think 1988 might have been like that as well.

Obviously the dynamics this year are very different, and we have no idea what that will entail for the runoff. It's possible Ensemble voters will remobilize due to the perceived threat of lacking a majority. Or it's possible that a lot of left-wing voters will come out and vote now that they see NUPES really has a chance. Or it's possible no one turns out and we end up with a runoff that looks basically like the first round (just with a lot less RN and a bit more Ensemble). I really can't hazard a guess. I assume the seat projections we're seeing right now are just extrapolating from first round results, though.