(Paris) The programs of the “two extremes” lead “to civil war,” French President Emmanuel Macron launched on Monday, while the leader of the far right Jordan Bardella, favorite in the polls, defended Monday the seriousness of his project and said he was “ready” to govern.

In a new speech, with the podcast Génération Do It Yourself, the President of the Republic does not mince his words in the direction of the National Rally and the radical left (La France insoumise).

“We are ready” to govern, repeated Jordan Bardella, the young president of the National Rally (RN) while presenting his program, while the polls credit him with 35.5 to 36% of the votes.

The RN is “the only movement that can immediately and reasonably implement the aspirations” of the French, said the man who, at 28, aspires to become prime minister.

“The RN is not ready to govern,” replied Macronist Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. It is “an opposition party and not a government party,” he argued on Europe 1 radio and the CNews channel.

Jordan Bardella rolled out his programme on Monday, proposing in particular “a big bang of authority” in schools from September, with a ban on mobile phones in establishments, the use of the formal “vous” by teachers and experiments with the wearing of uniforms.

Abroad, he repeated that he would maintain France’s support for Kyiv, but would oppose sending long-range missiles and French troops to Ukraine. He also immediately ruled out recognition of a Palestinian state, saying that “it would be recognizing terrorism.”

Jordan Bardella also waved the red rag in the event of victory for the New Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing parties (27 to 29.5%, according to polls) united despite deep differences, by predicting the explosion of immigration and a deep economic crisis.

The majority camp of President Emmanuel Macron, criticized from all sides for having dissolved the National Assembly, appears to be the most weakened of the three competing forces (19.5 to 20%), even with an alliance with the Republicans opposed to the RN (7-10%).

On the left alliance side, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, boss of the radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) is under pressure not to impose himself in Matignon in the event of victory.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon “is not the leader of the New Popular Front and he will not be prime minister,” declared the head of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier to AFP.

“The first emergency is to avoid the RN”, not to know who will go to Matignon, insisted Laurent Berger. The former union leader, opposed to the highly contested pension reform adopted in 2023, was once cited as a possible prime minister if the left wins.

Accused of being disconnected from the concerns of the French, the Macronist camp promises more collaborative governance. The president rules out any resignation, promising “to act until May 2027”, the end of his mandate, nevertheless admitting that “the way of governing [should] change profoundly”.

“The coming government […] will bring together, I hope, republicans of diverse sensibilities who will have known […] how to oppose the extremes,” he pleaded in a letter to the French published on Sunday in the press.

The majority seeks an interstice between a unifying tone at the center and offensive remarks against its opponents.

The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire castigated the NFP program and its tax increases, affirming that “everyone [would] be robbed by this project […] of Marxist inspiration”.

The outcome of the vote, between the specter of the first far-right government in the history of the country, and a National Assembly dominated by three irreconcilable poles for a minimum of a year, worries in France and abroad, while the war continues in Ukraine and Gaza, and one month before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated on Sunday in several cities in France against the “danger” for women’s rights that an RN victory would represent.

A collective of 170 diplomats and former diplomats published a petition in the daily newspaper Le Monde against a scenario which would “weaken France and Europe while war is here”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was “concerned” by this prospect, hoping for a victory for “parties which are not that of [Marine] Le Pen”.