France Analysis

French Left torn over whether to vote in Macron-Le Pen second round

Voters on the French Left are already fed up. Fed up that their candidates did not make it through to the second round of the French presidential election on May 7th, and fed up about being told to vote for a candidate whom they despise - Emmanuel Macron – in order to stop the far right's Marine Le Pen from gaining power. As Lénaïg Bredoux reports, some voters on the Left say that they do not want to give centrist Macron a convincing mandate and that they will either not vote or will leave their ballot paper blank – unless the outcome looks too close to call.

Lénaïg Bredoux

This article is freely available.

“Never, do you hear me? I will never vote for that bloke!” This heartfelt cry came last Sunday night from someone who was at the campaign headquarters of the defeated Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon where there were tears and a deep sense of disappointment after his elimination from the first round of the presidential election. Faced with the choice between centrist candidate and former merchant banker Emmanuel Macron and the far-right's Marine Le Pen, Hamon himself called for the Front National candidate to be beaten. It was the same message from the Socialist Party and also their allies the Greens.

On the Left only Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical left candidate who picked up around 19% of the vote, has declined to offer an opinion, leaving it down to the members of his France Insoumise ('Unbowed France') to decide the movement's line. But several of the movement's supporters, including the group Ensemble and the French Communist Party, have called on voters to stop Le Pen coming to power.

Yet, as the reaction of that socialist voter at Hamon's HQ above shows, there are many activists and supporters on the Left who are deeply troubled by the choice ahead of them in the second round of the election on May 7th. A number of left-wing voters – how many is unclear but everyone agrees it is a significant number – swear that they cannot vote for the former economy minister and civil servant Emmanuel Macron and his movement En Marche! ('On the move!'). A few even envisage voting for Marine Le Pen.

Delve into French social media and you can see the agonising of many voters. It is also apparent on phone-ins on France Inter radio, comments posted on Mediapart and two blogs on this site by Cambridge-based academic and Mélenchon supporter Olivier Tonneau (see here and here).

It is true that in 2002, when Marine Le Pen's father Jean-Marie Le Pen made it through to the second round, a part of the electorate was left reeling, and it took defeated Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin five days before he called on people to vote for the eventual winner Jacques Chirac. But Jospin had been caught unaware by an unprecedented event that the polls had not predicted. The Left's voters took to the streets to ensure Le Pen senior was kept out. There is no real sign of any such demonstration so far in 2017 though on Thursday April 27th there were some protests by school pupils in Paris brandishing slogans saying 'neither Le Pen nor Macron'.

On Twitter a special hashtag has been created for those who do not want to endorse either candidate in the second-round vote: #Sansmoiele7mai ('Without me on May 7th'). On these messages one can feel the real anger of Mélenchon supporters at being told who to vote for by people who had, in some cases, been very critical of the campaign conducted by the leader of France Insoumise. They also display a weariness at once again having to vote “against” something rather than for something. “Frankly I now only cast votes of support,” says Isabelle, who describes herself as left-wing and from Brittany in western France.

There is also deep dismay that the very people these voters blame for the rise in the Front National (FN) are now asking them to vote against the same far right. “Your liberal politics are responsible for the rise of the FN and you want us to vote for you?” asks one person, while another says: “The FN vote comes from the social despair produced by capitalism and we are being asked to vote for Macron to block it.” Others are simply opposed to Macron's liberal economic policies. “I'll vote for neither Macron or Le Pen, I will not be an accomplice to the future social massacre that the MEDEF [editor's note, the employers' federation] is preparing for us,” said one. Another noted: “Macron's going to roll out a violent programme of economic and social carnage. We won't vote for that.”

On Facebook there are numerous groups holding lively debates on the issue: should they vote for Macron, abstain or spoil their vote with a blank ballot paper? On occasions the discussions are tense. “Ok on abstention but … what about the illegal immigrants, the migrants, the poor, and more generally all those who are already suffering violence? MLP [Marine Le Pen] in power gives carte blanche to all those in the state system and elsewhere who are just waiting for the signal to go for it. I've a problem there...” says one supporter of the defeated far-left candidate Philippe Poutou on a private forum. Some of his fellow Poutou supporters responded to him. “But Le Pen will never win, that's just the idea they want to imprint on our brains, there's no fascist majority in this country...” said one. Others said: “For me, it's yielding to a system that you're fighting against” and “Rubbish, you really think there aren't enough votes in reserve among our opponents to crush Le Pen?”

Some voters worry about their “privileged white” status meaning they personally don't have much to lose if Le Pen wins. Others respond that even François Hollande tried during his presidency to adopt one of the Front National's policies, that of stripping nationality from dual nationals convicted of terrorist offences, even if the attempt ended in failure. They also noted that Hollande's prime minister Manuel Valls stated the importance of identity politics and intervened in the row over the wearing of the full-body swimwear known as the burkini.

On Twitter, Facebook and comments on Mediapart, many left-wing activists and members of associations have taken particular exception to the anti-FN lessons being hurled at them since Sunday by the Right and the Socialist Party. The Tweet below notes how the same people who have “stopped us from showing solidarity with migrants for five years” were now trying to explain to them how to fight against the far-right party:

“The vast majority of my work colleagues don't want to vote for Macron either,” says one government employment inspector on Facebook who asks to remains anonymous. “And not just the Mélenchon supporters. Their arguments: they're fed up with having to yield to the blackmail under which voting for Macron is preparing the way for Le Pen to win in 2022 [editor's note, the next presidential election] or, too bad, we'll see what happens because she won't have a majority at the [National] Assembly.” Meanwhile a teacher writes: “Feelings are divided at work. Nothing like 2002.” Other phrases that keep cropping up are “fatigue”, “I'm no longer choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea” and “I can no longer bear this blackmail that was going around back in her father's time [editor's note referring to Marine Le Pen's father Jean-Marie].”

Some elected representatives seem to be agonising over the same arguments, and are tempted by or torn between abstention and leaving ballot papers blank. On Facebook the socialist deputy mayor in the 14th arrondissement or district of Paris, Amine Bouabbas (see below), said: “I don't want Macron to get 80% and thus be able to soften up the country by posing as its saviour in order to carry out his liberal policies and policies of deregulation for his friends in the oligarchy. I will leave my ballot paper blank.” He then quickly adds: “I don't believe for a second in the possibility of her winning. If with a few days to go I feel I'm wrong I'll change my mind.”

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A councillor from the radical left Front de Gauche in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, Madjid Messaoudene, shares a similar view (see below), saying he did not want to legitimise either the “candidate of finance or the candidate of hate”.

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A green councillor at Allonnes in central western France, Alexis Braud, Tweeted (see below) that the choice was between a “seller of hate and a second-hand car salesman”.

In a public posting an official from the CGT trade union (see below), Karl Ghazi, said he was torn between the “rational part of his brain” and his “gut instinct”. He said: “Generally (unfortunately?) it's not my gut instinct that wins. But they mustn't try to butter me up too much. If I hear another [Myriam] El Khomri, [Jean-Marie] Le Guen [both ministers] , Valls, [Julien] Dray [a close ally of Hollande] or a Hollande lecturing me I'll no longer be answerable for my actions!”

'Each time we're told to vote for the least bad option. We've had enough'

Pierre Laurent, national secretary of the French Communist party (PCF), says: “People are saying to us 'you're right [to call on us to vote Macron] but it's still tough for me'. The second round line-up is causing a great deal of frustration, anger, bitterness, as it's about filling in a ballot paper that carries none of our convictions.”

The veteran Green politician Noël Mamère, who is stepping down as an MP at the next election in June, has also called for people to vote for Macron but says he “understands the anger of all those who don't feel represented in this run-off”. He added: “In 2022, 20 years after the events of April 21st [editor's note, the date in 2002 that Jean-Marie Le Pen made it through to the second round] there is a risk the FN will come to power, because we'll have abandoned the majority of our citizens by the side of the road. I can't accept that.” During his campaign the defeated socialist Benoît Hamon kept insisting that victory for Macron in 2017 would lead to Le Pen coming to power in 2022. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has described Le Pen and Macron as the “extreme right” and “extreme finance” respectively.

The feminist activist Caroline De Haas, who is to be a Parliamentary candidate in the 18th arrondissement in Paris in June, has written on Twitter about a campaign meeting involving about 50 people. “Several expressed their refusal to go and vote or their desire to leave the ballot paper blank,” she wrote. “People defended the blank ballot paper or abstention, expressing a refusal to respond to a blackmail they felt they had already gone through. They told us 'Each time we're told to vote for the least bad option. And in the end it all starts again five years later. We've had enough'. Or they say 'I can't envisage putting a ballot form into a box for a guy who is going to make employment law worse. I can't do it.' In the end we had more expressions in favour of a Macron vote than against. But it wasn't unanimous.”

Caroline De Haas has herself explained in a blog why she will vote for Macron on May 7th. “A big part of me understands my friends who will not go and vote. My friends who say that they've been there, done that. Who have had enough of these blackmails over the FN when we are not responsible for the situation which the country finds itself in. Who have the feeling that in voting for Macron, we're going to keep on life support a political system which has gone haywire and which is leading us to destruction. My attitude on May 7th will not just be a response to the question 'Is Emmanuel Macron a good choice for my country?'. My vote on May 7th will also be a response to the question 'What is the result that will allow me to lead the battle tomorrow?'”

This argument is similar to that made by the historian Mathilde Larrère on Twitter, which she concluded with these words: “Personally, I'd prefer to be in a demo against Macron where people are attacking me by saying 'You can't say anything, you voted' rather than in a demo against Le Pen where people say to me 'You can't say anything, you didn't vote'. Because if that happens I would not forgive myself.” Earlier she had said: “The people who hesitate, those who have decided, are not idiots or traitors. Instructions or condemnations have never changed people's minds. If you want to convince, discuss calmly and listen too.”

Between now and May 7th these forms of discussions might result in people changing their minds, hesitating, switching a vote for Macron into an abstention or a planned blank ballot paper becoming a vote for Macron. It is clear that even those who are the most hostile to a united front against Le Pen could still change their mind. “I'm still hesitating, there's still time to reflect...lots of things can still happen,” says one Hamon supporter on Facebook. At least two Mediapart readers have similar views (see below), with one promising to vote Macron only if Le Pen reaches 45% in the polls, while another says they will vote for the former merchant banker if his ratings fall below 53%, in other words within the margin of error of him losing:

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  • The French version of this article be found here.

English version by Michael Streeter