The first round of the French presidential elections left current President Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen as the two options for the ballot on April 24. With a distance of only 4.5 percentage points between the two, the direction of the vote of the 22% of French people who gave their support to the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, will be key to elevate the next person who occupies the Palace of the Elysium.
“No, no, not Le Pen or Macron”, was heard this Thursday at the gates of the famous University of Bribery in Paris, the capital of France, where hundreds of students showed their weariness with the current politics in the country. A sample of the fed up of French youth with a political system that, once again, forces them to decide between what for many is “the lesser evil”.
“We are tired of always having to vote for the least bad of the two, and that is what explains this revolt. Neither Macron nor Le Pen,” Anais Jacquemars, a 20-year-old philosophy student at the Sorbonne, told Reuters, a university that has been occupied by some students since Wednesday.
The young people, crowded into one of the most renowned universities in Europe, are undoubtedly not a sample of what all French youth think, but they are a population extract of an age group, the one that goes from 18 to 24 years, and who voted overwhelmingly for the left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon. 65% got the leftist candidate between 25 and 34 years old.
The candidate of ‘La France Insumisa’ achieved a total of 22% of the votes in the first round, only 1.2% less than the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, who will face President Emmanuel Macron in the second round . Part of the keys to the second round will be the direction of the vote taken by left-wing voters.
Mélenchon asks that no vote go to Marine Le Pen
On the same election night of the first round, Mélenchon left a clear message for his electorate: “You must not give a single vote to Marine Le Pen!” A red line for much of the French left that sees in the daughter of the founder of the National Front, the great party of the French extreme right in recent years, the great evil to be fought in the country’s politics.
For some young French people, a Macron-Le Pen dichotomy they no longer want to fall into after many left-wing voters voted for Macron in 2017 to curb the extreme right. “I intend to abstain, I advise everyone to abstain,” Gabriel Vergne, a 19-year-old student at the elite Sciences-Po government school, also told Reuters.
“Marine Le Pen adds to the project of social mistreatment that she shares with Emmanuel Macron a dangerous ferment of ethnic and religious exclusion,” specifies Jean-Luc Mélenchon in an open letter published on Wednesday, April 13. Despite this, Mélenchon continues to say that no votes should be given to Le Pen, without asking for a specific vote for Emmanuel Macron. “They are not equivalent,” says the leftist politician.
At this point, abstention can also be key in the election. Many left-wing voters feel that the government of current President Emmanuel Macron has leaned too far to the right and do not see it as a good option either.
Why might it be so difficult for many French people to vote for Macron in the second round?
This is the question asked by the researcher and professor at the University of Lausanne, in Switzerland, on his Twitter profile. There he discusses various points such as inequality. According to the March report of the Institute of Public Policies of France, the richest 1% increased their income by 3%, the poorest 5% only 0.8%.
🇫🇷 Why would it be so difficult for many French (+ among the popular classes) to vote for Macron in the second round against Le Pen?
We are not in 2017, the French have had 5 years to evaluate a government that has been buying the framework of the extreme right.
THREAD🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/rWDw2ZjWaT
– Aldo Rubert (@aldo_rubert) April 9, 2022
Macron has also faced the yellow vest protests, one of the biggest challenges his government has faced. On September 29, 2020, the NGO Amnesty International published a report denouncing the harsh repression during the protests.
“On the basis of vague laws” that cover crimes such as “disrespect of public officials”, “participation in a group with a view to committing violent acts” and “organization of protests without complying with the notification requirements”, more than 40,000 people between 2018 and 2019, AI denounced.
Another of the harsh criticisms of Macron comes for the approval of the so-called “Law against Separatism” to fight against radical Islamism. For the left opposition, this meant buying the discourse of the extreme right. For Marine Le Pen, an insufficient law.
Fully campaigning for the second round
In the midst of all this context, Marine Le Pen was this Thursday in the city of Avignon, in the southeast of the country, in her first campaign rally ahead of the April 24 ballot. There, where she won Mélenchon in the first round, Le Pen, whose campaign slogan is “a woman of the state”, has addressed undecided voters and harshly criticized the country’s political elite.
“We are coming out of a period in which public action was not for the benefit of all, but of a few. The prospect of victory for the opposition makes them lose their temper, ”he assured before a massive audience. “I tell you solemnly: I will not take away any right from any French,” he said in a clear message to those who doubt his intentions.
Le Pen’s program is also committed to raising the minimum wage and “freezing employer contributions for five years” for companies that raise wages by 10%. “My first measures will refer to the purchasing power of energy and the transition to zero VAT on basic necessities. It’s urgent!” he assured.
In addition, Le Pen has distanced herself from one of the figures that could do her the most harm in these elections: President Vladimir Putin. Until at least 2017, his National Front party, National Grouping since 2018, received funding from Russia and Le Pen advocated a rapprochement with Russia.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia has ceased to be a beacon for Le Pen, who has even changed her position towards NATO and the EU. He used to ask for the departure of both institutions, now he asks for a reform from within.
Macron seeks the vote in Le Havre and receives the support of François Hollande
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron was in the city of Le Havre in the Normandy region. There he criticized “the complete aberration” of his opponent, who claims to want to dismantle wind turbines in service and paralyze all wind projects, which according to Macron provide 10% of the country’s electricity.
This measure would entail the closure of the factory of the Spanish group Siemens-Gamesa in the port of Le Havre, and which is presented as “the largest industrial project in the history of renewable energies in France”, with the consequent loss of jobs that it would entail. .
Macron was also seeking here the vote of the electorate of Mélenchon who got 30.17% of the votes, ahead of the president himself (27.53%) and Le Pen (20.67%). Emmanuel Macron has on his program the promotion of renewable energies and the construction of six new nuclear power plants.
At this event, Macron was accompanied by the conservative Édouard Philippe, who was his prime minister between May 2017 and the summer of 2020, and who continues to be highly regarded by the French in opinion polls. During the day he also received the support of former socialist president François Hollande.
Various polls of voting intentions predicted on Wednesday that Macron has slightly increased his advantage over Le Pen, who would get between 53% and 55% of the vote. A much lower figure than 5 years ago, when the current president won his far-right rival in the second round with 66.1% of the vote.
With EFE, Reuters and local media.
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