The picture of the future National Assembly is less and less blurred, but great uncertainties remain. Credited with 25.75% of the votes nationally, the presidential majority (Ensemble) can hope to obtain between 255 and 295 MP seats, according to initial estimates by Ipsos Sopra Steria.
This is the most pessimistic projection for Emmanuel Macron: the range oscillates between 260 and 300 at OpinionWay, and between 270 and 310 at Elabe and Ifop. The absolute majority threshold is 289 seats.
This first round, which could have been a formality for Emmanuel Macron after his score in the presidential election, was not the expected confirmation. “The absolute majority is not at this stage guaranteed to Together. The most likely, subject to the campaign, is that the presidential majority is relative, with less than 289 seats, even if an absolute majority of a few seats is still possible”, cautiously advances Mathieu Gallard, director of studies at the Ipsos institute.
But Emmanuel Macron’s party is the one with the largest vote reserve. “The fact that there are very few triangular places the majority either facing the RN, and in this configuration it will be able to count on half of the votes on the left, or facing the Nupes, where the majority will be able to count on around half voices from the traditional right”, calculates Erwan Lestrohan, director of studies at the Odoxa Institute.
Conversely, the RN and the Nupes reach a “glass ceiling”. The Popular, Ecological and Social Union could have 150 deputies in the worst case (Ipsos), 220 in the best (Elabe). If the projections can delight Jean-Luc Mélenchon, they do not allow to hope for a majority, its stated objective. The performance has no doubt already reached its limits: the union of the left cannot hope for more seats, except for the 15 to 25 various deputies on the left, especially from overseas (the Overseas Department was not part of the agreement) likely to join parliamentary groups of Nupes.
If all the polling institutes more or less agree on the number of seats for Together and the Nupes, they differ a little more on the fate of the RN and the Republicans in the Assembly. From one projection to another, there is a difference of 15 or even 20 seats. When Ipsos-Sopra Steria projects 50 to 80 seats for LR and UDI, Elabe estimates only 33 to 53.
Greater uncertainty over the vote of right-wing voters
This difference can be explained by a weaker control of vote deferrals among right-wing voters. “The result of the second round will depend in particular on the quality of the reports of LR voters, where their candidate is eliminated, towards Together, explains Mathieu Gallard. The models we use depend on very sensitive variations: between a 50% vote transfer and a 70% transfer, that makes a lot of seats move. »
And the lower the score of a party and the number of constituencies in which it is present, the more difficult it is to estimate the results. “For the RN, there are fewer leavers, so it is less easy to make projections. We also have little control over vote deferrals when the candidates are less known, ”says Erwan Lestrohan. This is why Ifop assigns 5 to 25 seats to the RN in a projection of Figaro, while Ipsos-Sopra Steria provides 20 to 45 in our pages.
“The respondents do not want an absolute majority, but no Mélenchon either, sums up the specialist. The French are the referees of a match of which they do not want winners. »