Uncertainties and very high tension three days before the vote in France

Photo: Jean-Francois Badias Associated Press The campaign, which will end on Friday, is marked by an increase in verbal and physical clashes.

Jérémy Tordjman – Agence France-Presse in Paris

Posted at 5:58 p.m.

• Europe

Three days before the second round of historic legislative elections, incidents are accumulating in a France under very high tension, which could tip to the extreme right or become ungovernable due to lack of a clear majority on Sunday.< /p>

The fear of the far right coming to power, for the first time in 80 years, pushed the captain of the French soccer team, Kylian Mbappé, to speak out again on Thursday and urge his compatriots to go vote.

“It’s really urgent. We cannot put the country in the hands of these people, it is really urgent. We’ve seen the results, it’s catastrophic,” said the attacker.

The campaign, which will end on Friday, is marked by an increase in verbal and physical clashes. In Savoie, in the Alps, the candidate of the National Rally (RN, far right) Marie Dauchy filed a complaint after being violently attacked by a trader in a market. In neighboring Isère, former minister Olivier Véran denounced Thursday the attack on a local elected official who was putting up posters for his campaign.

Wednesday evening, it was government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot, candidate in the Paris region, who was the victim, with her team, of an attack during a poster-pasting operation.

< p>A sign of the prevailing concern, the government announced that “30,000 police officers and gendarmes including 5,000 in Paris and its suburbs” would be mobilized on Sunday for the evening of the second round.

Testimonies also indicate an increase in racist incidents and insults in the country since the start of this campaign, launched after the surprise dissolution decided by President Macron on the evening of June 9, after the victory from the far right to the Europeans.

An outgoing deputy from Burgundy (center) thus blurted out that a “binational Maghreb” did not have “his place in the high places” of power while a candidate judged it “absolutely false” that the RN was racist in arguing that she herself has “as an ophthalmologist a Jew and […] as a dentist a Muslim”. Another said there was nothing “anti-Semitic” about saying the gas chambers were a detail of World War II.

Violence is also deployed online. The court was seized after an ultra-right site called for “eliminating” lawyers who had signed an anti-RN forum.

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

Questioned about these slip-ups, the leading figure of the far right, Marine Le Pen, made a distinction between “remarks which are unacceptable and which, most certainly, will lead to sanctions” and “remarks which are blunders” in the face of to the “great inquisitors of the press”.

The RN candidates are “good people”, she said.

“When it’s one in three candidates for whom we have problematic comments, it’s not a few bad apples, it’s the whole flock that is sick,” joked Thursday evening on France 2 Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

Also read

• What you need to know for the second round of legislative elections in France
• Mbappé warns of “catastrophic” far right in France
• Leading in the first round of legislative elections, the French far right is “at the gates of power”

Republican Front

The dynamic in favor of the RN, which came first in the first round last Sunday, could be slowed down by the approximately 200 withdrawals of right-wing, center-right and left, agreed to prevent the extreme right from governing in France for the first time in 80 years.

Ursed by this new “republican front”, Marine Le Pen denounced Thursday the establishment of a “single party” bringing together “those who want to retain power against the will of the people”.

And the president of the party Jordan Bardella stirred up the threat of a paralyzed France. “Either the National Rally obtains an absolute majority and I can, from Sunday, initiate the recovery project that I am carrying […]. Or else the country is blocked”, summarized the one who sees himself as prime minister Thursday on France 2.

The Association of Emergency Physicians of France (AMUF), among other organizations, called on Thursday to “block” the far right “to protect our health system”, after several forums signed by thousands of other caregivers, also worried about the fate of foreign doctors in the event of a victory for the extreme right.

According to the latest polls, the possibility for the RN to achieving an absolute majority of 289 deputies seems to be moving away.

The National Rally and its allies would obtain between 210 and 240 seats at the end of the second round of the legislative elections, according to a poll by the Ifop institute published Thursday.

But, everywhere in France, left-wing voters are hesitant to once again block the far right.

“Macron was elected by left-wing votes. He should have made concessions to the left, but he only made concessions to the right,” regrets Michel, 66, in front of a fruit and vegetable stand in Calvados, in the west of the country.

A former teacher, Claude will resign herself to voting for the Macronist camp, worried about those who want to “try” the far right. “The voting booth is not a fitting room,” she said.

Despite these calls for a barrier, the young president of the RN Jordan Bardella believes in victory for his camp, which would propel him to the post of prime minister at age 28.

Opposite, the left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front (NFP) and the Macronist camp (center-right) are taking the opportunity to warn of the danger of the far right. But, barring an improbable shift, neither of these two blocs will obtain a clear majority on Sunday, at the risk of making the country ungovernable one month before the Paris Olympics.

For To escape paralysis, certain leaders of the center-right and the left are considering a vast transpartisan coalition, common in Germany but unprecedented in France.

The contours of such However, the alliance remains extremely vague and seven years of Macronist power have dug deep political gaps.

with the political service of the AFP