If the main political formations have already published the list of invested, surprises are not excluded, such as a candidacy of François Hollande in Corrèze, or candidates without label, dissidents, replacements at short notice or withdrawals occur during the daytime.
The day is also suspended for the possible announcement of the government of the new Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, which is long overdue.
With this closure of candidacies in the 577 constituencies, the official campaign will be able to start on May 30, before the first round on June 12.
The declaration in the prefecture must include the surname, first name, sex, date and place of birth, domicile and profession of the candidate, who cannot present himself in two different constituencies. The substitute, who may be called upon to replace the elected member during the legislature, must present the same information.
The Interior Ministry is expected to unveil the full lists of candidates by constituency on Monday. Five years ago, they were a total of 7,882 to present themselves for the legislative elections, that is to say nearly 14 per constituency and 1,300 more than five years earlier.
A newcomer to the French political landscape, the presidential party LREM then obtained an absolute majority, with its MoDem allies. Emmanuel Macron, reappointed to the Elysée for five years during the presidential election in April, hopes to have a new absolute majority to carry out his program.
– Confederations and alliances –
The centrist presidential majority this time comes in the form of a “confederation” called Ensemble!, which brings together LREM and its allies Agir, MoDem and the new centre-right formation Horizons, launched by former Prime Minister Edouard Philip. She invested 553 candidates.
Facing it, this alliance will have the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, which obtained the highest score ever achieved by the far right during the second round of the presidential election on April 24 (41.45%).
For the June elections, the RN is launching 569 candidates, but without agreement with Reconquête!, the party of polemicist Eric Zemmour (550 candidates), or Debout la France, that of sovereignist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.
The left, on the other hand, is united, unlike the presidential election in April. Under the aegis of the third man in the ballot – the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon who called on the French to “elect him Prime Minister” during the legislative elections – it gathered under the banner of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), which invested 546 candidates.
This alliance, which brings together LFI, PS, environmentalists and PCF, hopes to delight the majority in particular to prevent Emmanuel Macron from carrying out his pension reform.
As for the Republicans, crushed during the presidential election, they are counting in particular on the local roots of their candidates to avoid another collapse during the legislative elections.
For the moment, the pollsters take little risk in making projections on the number of seats which will be allocated to each party during the legislative elections, believing that it is still too early.
They attribute to the Nupes a victory of a short head in voting intentions (27.5 to 28%) ahead of the presidential majority (26-27%) and the RN (21.5-23%).
For the second round of June 19, the rare opinion polls to give projections in seats predict a victory for Ensemble!, even if the low bracket is close to the 289 seats necessary for an absolute majority.
Participation will be one of the challenges of these legislative elections, after the record abstention reached during the second round in 2017 (57.56%), i.e. less than one in two voters who went to the polls.
According to an Elabe poll published on Wednesday, only 47% of registered voters say they are “completely certain to vote”.
A low turnout in the June legislative elections would impact the ballot, virtually eliminating any possibility of a triangular vote, with the candidate coming third needing to garner at least 12.5% support from registered voters to advance to the second round.
