The boss of LREM deputies Christophe Castaner for his part denounced a “conspiracy theory” relayed by Manuel Bompard, campaign manager of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Nupes candidate in the Bouches-du-Rhône.

According to the official results, the macronist coalition Together! was ahead of the united left by just over 21,000 votes only, out of 23.3 million voters, with 25.75% of the vote, against 25.66% for Nupes.

But in a nocturnal tweet, Manuel Bompard argued that “the Nupes achieves 6,101,968 votes (or 26.8%)” and accuses the Ministry of the Interior of assigning it “only 5,836,202 (25.7 %) to artificially make Macron’s party appear in the lead”.

“Hello the Council of State?”, He launched, six days after a decision of the institution which, seized by LFI in summary, had ordered the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin to take into consideration the Nupes as “a political nuance in its own right” during the election.

On RTL Monday morning, the number two of LFI Adrien Quatennens drove the point home: denouncing “tampering” by a “ministry which, for example, reclassifies Nupes candidates to Various left” to display the Nupes “behind LREM”, he assured that it is “well in the lead of this first round, no offense to power”.

Questioned by AFP, the Ministry of the Interior underlines that in the “yet very complete list” of “all the candidates to whom it will be appropriate to attribute the Nupes nuance” sent by the Nupes campaign management to the ministry on June 8, “there was no candidate overseas”.

Thus certain candidates from Corsica and overseas, territories outside the national Nupes agreement, were not counted, such as Karine Le Bon in the 2nd constituency of Reunion (42.9%) and the rebellious outgoing deputy Hugues Ratenon in the 5th (36.38%).

LFI retorts that they campaigned for Nupes.

The ministry continues: “Beyond that, three candidates initially invested by the Nupes but who had declared that they wanted to give up this investiture were counted in Various left”: Hervé Saulignac (1st district of Ardèche), Dominique Potier (5th from Meurthe-et-Moselle) and Joël Aviragnet (8th from Haute-Garonne).

He argues that the situation is the same for the presidential majority, for example for the minister “Damien Abad, who can legitimately be thought to be supported by Ensemble”, and who “is counted in Divers right”.