As in 2017, Marine Le Pen did not go far from the Grand Slam in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA). The 113,519 registrants in the Hautes-Alpes, the least populated territory of the six regional departments and the furthest from the major coastal cities, refused him this symbolic success by carrying Emmanuel Macron in the lead in the first round by a few hundred votes (23 .78% against 22.84%). Even relegating the candidate of the National Rally (RN) behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon (22.87%). It is however well Mme Le Pen, who once again came out well ahead (27.59%) of this first Sunday of voting in a region still as sensitive to the theses of the far right, and, in the first place, to those relating to Islam and immigration.
If it does not reach its 28.16% of 2017, Marine Le Pen is ahead, in 2022, of Emmanuel Macron by 4.25 points. Or the opposite, almost exact, of the result at the national level. In Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, it lost more than 42,000 votes between the two presidential elections. But this erosion is all sham. While abstention is growing strongly (21.22% in 2017 against 26.19% on Sunday April 10, i.e. nearly 106,000 fewer voters in the region), the leader of the RN faces the establishment of Reconquête !, by Eric Zemmour. The other far-right candidate, joined by several local executives of the Lepenist party – such as the Marseille senator Stéphane Ravier or the Nice regional councilor Philippe Vardon – reached 11.71% of the votes in PACA. That is 4.64 points more than its national score.
The few local breakthroughs of Zemmour
Eric Zemmour stays away from the goals his local lieutenants dream of, but gets 310,000 votes in the area and makes a few breakthroughs. The Var, with 13.25%, offers one of its best departmental scores, barely ahead of Corse-du-Sud (13.36%). The former columnist of the Figaro and CNews even obtains 22.42% of the votes in Saint-Tropez. In Nice, stronghold of deputy (Les Républicains, LR) Eric Ciotti, it is just below the 15% mark. A bar that he crosses cheerfully in the neighboring town of Cannes (17.31%), or in a few towns such as Cogolin (Var), whose mayor, Marc-Etienne Lansade, is one of his relatives, or Villeneuve-Loubet ( Alpes-Maritimes), led by LR Lionnel Luca. Cities where, if he nibbles on Marine Le Pen, he also clearly benefits from some of the votes that were cast in 2017 on François Fillon.
At the level of the region, the far-right candidates – if we add the result of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan – cumulate 41.57% of the votes cast. A score to be compared with the 36.38% obtained, less than a year ago, in the first round of the regional elections of 2021 by the candidate RN Thierry Mariani, in a ballot with starving participation (33.72%). An election that could serve as a laboratory before the second round of April 24: the alliance around the president, Renaud Muselier, bringing together the Republican right and the presidential majority, having finally succeeded in winning quite widely by launching a clear call for votes from the left.
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