President of the polling institute Cluster 17, Jean-Yves Dormagen is also a professor of political science at the University of Montpellier. He deciphers the balance of power between different political families a year before the presidential election.
How should we interpret the polls a year before the vote?
The polls a year before the election are not predictive of the outcome. Sometimes, it’s not the same candidates who end up running, like Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for example. Some are forced to drop out or are eliminated from the competition. Others, not tested at the beginning of the campaign, become significant candidates. And then the campaign changes the balance of power.
But they do provide insight into the current balance of power. It gives an idea of what weighs on the radical left, the moderate left, the Macronist space, the liberal right, the conservative right, and it gives an idea of the popularity of certain candidates a year before the election.
So, what are the major trends emerging today?
What’s striking is how fragmented the political landscape is. There is the dominant block of the National Rally, much stronger than the others. A year before the election, it represents almost a third of the votes.
And all the other families are very fragmented. You have a space of traditional conservative right, today more represented by Bruno Retailleau, weighing around 10%. There is a center space with several potential candidates, where Édouard Philippe is currently in a leadership position, which, depending on the configurations, also weighs around 15%, or a little more, but still relatively limited.
You have the space of the radical left, around Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which also weighs a little over 10% of the votes. And then the space of the more moderate left, more social-democratic, which could today be embodied by Raphaël Glucksmann, with François Hollande who also wants to try to run, and which also weighs a small 10%.
An unprecedented fragmentation…
This is relatively new. We are beyond the tripartition of five and ten years ago. And we are obviously very far from the left-right bipolar space of the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s.
Bardella or Le Pen, does it change anything in public opinion?
Marine Le Pen had a slight advantage over Jordan Bardella a few months ago. But since her conviction and since Jordan Bardella became a potential candidate, and perhaps even the most likely, their levels are quite equivalent. In general, voters seem to support the National Rally, whether it’s Bardella or Le Pen who embody it.
But it’s hard to imagine the National Rally easily winning the presidential election. The weaknesses of Bardella and Le Pen are actually quite similar. With this lack of experience, for slightly different reasons, they both have difficulty embodying what is called presidentiality.
Will the international context and its impact on the national level play a big role in this election, do you think?
It will depend on the evolution of the international situation. But I think the international context is more of a problem for the National Rally than for other parties. For example, it currently has very ambiguous positions on the European Union, while overall, the context has created a widespread demand for protection in the population, especially at the European level.
On these issues, the National Rally is very unclear. It cannot be otherwise, because some of its voters want to leave the EU. And its historical ties with Russia are also a problem.
And then there’s the fact that Donald Trump is the leader of a radical right-wing international. He is a disruptive element for far-right and radical right-wing parties in Europe because Trump is very unpopular in Europe. Especially in France.
