January 22 and 29: the dates of the polls will be written in large letters on their campaign posters. Three deputies saw their election canceled by the Constitutional Council on December 2, 2022, and are ordered to challenge their mandate. The philippist Thomas Mesnier (Charente), the lepenist Anne-Sophie Frigout (Marne) and the socialist Bertrand Petit (Pas-de-Calais) will have to defend their short record in the National Assembly. But, above all, to prepare minds for a new electoral deadline. Because, during the partial, abstention is the first adversary. The latest, in October 2022, in the 2e constituency of Yvelines, had mobilized only 22.17% of the electorate, against 58.37% during the first round of the legislative elections, on June 19, 2022.
« We must explain why a new election is being held, reaffirm the importance of the vote. And then try to convince those who move to choose me. » Thomas Mesnier, elected Horizons of the 1re constituency of Charente, is aware of the difficulty of the exercise. His opponent, the candidate of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) René Pilato, is just as much. “Abstention is the most complicated thing in this election: people on the right are mobilizing the most”he laments.
So, exit the truce of the confectioners for the former professor of mathematics who, unlike his outgoing opponent, has “towed”, ” glue ” et ” box ” during the Christmas holidays. René Pilato welcomed, from the first week of the campaign, the coordinator of La France insoumise (LFI) Manuel Bompard and the LFI deputy Clémence Guetté (Val-de-Marne). Because it is in Charente that the election should be the tightest: only 24 votes separated the two candidates in June 2022, before the constitutional judges detected 27 votes irregularly cast in the second round. “If the level of participation is high enough, it can be favorable to us”, hopes the candidate of the Nupes. Thomas Mesnier, him, “does not consider other possibilities than his re-election”.
A fiery political comeback
The political return, marked by the presentation of the pension reform, the energy crisis and galloping inflation, could help to repoliticize minds. This is at least what hopes Anne-Sophie Frigout, deputy of the National Rally (RN) of the 2e district of the Marne. It will mainly campaign on the repeal of low emission zones (ZFE), in a district of Reims which has just banned the most polluting vehicles (Crit’air 4) from circulating in the agglomeration. This is also the record that she claims from her electorate: the far-right elected representative had drafted a bill aimed at abolishing this device “deeply anti-Republican”selected by the RN for its parliamentary niche on January 12.
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