French presidential election: “La France Insoumise” voters hold the country’s fate in their own hands

If opinion polls are favorable for President Emmanuel Macron’s candidate, Marine Le Pen could create a surprise if La France Insoumise voters decide not to follow Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s instructions and vote, to spite, for the far-right candidate.

“Nothing is playing.” This is the certainty that appears in French public opinion regarding the results of the second round of the presidential elections, scheduled for Sunday, April 24. If opinion polls are favorable to the outgoing president, Emmanuel Macron, then Marine Le Pen could surprise if voters of La France Insoumise (LFI) decide not to follow Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s instructions and vote, to spite, for the far-right candidate.

The former prime minister, head of the “Horizons” party, Edouard Philippe, speaking on the airwaves of France Inter on Tuesday, believes that “this election is still very open. I think Marine Le Pen can win and we have to take this election seriously. So we must We have to campaign for the candidacy of the President of the Republic to prevail and to prevent France from surrendering itself to Mrs. Le Pen. Which would be a very problematic and very dangerous thing. We must take this election very seriously, with the French.

So there are 12 days left for persuasion, on the side of Emmanuel Macron, and for seduction on the part of the head of the National Rally. The former will have to impress his outstanding record with the yellow vest crisis, the Covid-19 epidemic and the war in Ukraine. Le Pen, she is in a state of temptation to get around her case for the voters of the candidates who were expelled in the first round.

If, on the part of the electorate, many of them have already called for a no-vote for Marine Le Pen, the idea of ​​the Republican Front seems to have died out. The finalists in the second round of the presidential election are also doubling down on meetings and promises, either to stay at the Elysee or to enter it. And the two show, each, their papers. Neither left nor right, Emmanuel Macron wants to rally around him from the left and especially the right.

And he’s betting on a Republican front that can still do its job on April 24 at the polls, calling on frustrated voters to give him their vote. Some will do it to block the far right. “I am fully aware that this will not be worth supporting the project I am doing, and I respect it,” he said Sunday evening.

For her part, toned down, Marine Le Pen is playing the defense of purchasing power and social justice, very explicitly calling on “left-wing voters to join in”. Abstention, blank vote or Emmanuel Macron’s vote? Jean-Luc Melenchon on Wednesday launched consultations with 310,000 of his supporters, after the former candidate had already called not to “give a single vote to Le Pen”.

The consultation, the results of which will be announced, ends on Saturday at 8:00 pm. The two finalists “are not equal. Marine Le Pen adds to the project of social abuse, which she shares with Emmanuel Macron, a dangerous fermentation of racial and religious exclusion,” the LFI chairwoman noted in a letter to voters.

All shots allowed
Asked about Melenchonist voters whose choice is not always the case, the Horizons founder admitted that “the choice before them may not be the one they would have liked to have in the second round”.

For him, France will never be the same – it may not be exactly the same [les électeurs] You would love with Jean-Luc Mélenchon or with someone else – but it wouldn’t be the same if Marine Le Pen was elected president or if Emmanuel Macron remained president.

Edouard Philippe asserted: “It is my conviction, my intimate conviction, but not a mere intuition, but an intellectual conviction, that France would live less well if Marine Le Pen were elected president.” As of Monday, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen set out to beat voters. The fight is fierce and all shots are allowed. All subjects are subject to bitter verbal competitions. Thus, the Republican Party candidate considered that the government and Emmanuel Macron were “in denial in the face of the wall of inflation” that France would have faced. When asked earlier in France 2 channel what measures will be taken in the face of inflation, Emmanuel Macron replied that “what we have decided with the government on electricity, gas and gasoline is more efficient than reducing the value-added tax”, as suggested by Le Pen.

The leader of the National Rally is also on the defensive on another front, this time with the National Election Campaign Monitoring Committee (CNCCEP), who asked her for clarification on her religious career in the second round. In the crosshairs of the campaign’s “gendarmes”, she provided figures to illustrate Emmanuel Macron’s record on insecurity and immigration.

In foreign policy, everything is opposed to the outgoing president and his opponent. Marine Le Pen, who is neither Atlantic nor multilateral, focuses all her diplomacy on the idea that France will not be “respected” in the world. It sees Europe as a brake and wants, for example, to renegotiate the Schengen agreements in order to reset borders or reduce France’s financial contribution to the EU. On the contrary, Emmanuel Macron has made Europe the mainstay of his diplomacy for five years, he said again, Tuesday evening in Strasbourg, stressing that this election is also a “referendum on Europe”.

He believes that nationalism leads to an “alliance of countries that want to go to war” in Europe. The conflict in Ukraine should figure prominently in Le Pen’s campaign, as she tries to forget her closeness to Russia and Vladimir Putin. However, the far-right candidate denounced the Russian invasion and said she was too early to welcome refugees from that country in France. On the other hand, she is still hostile to economic sanctions against Moscow, which affect the purchasing power of the French.

The world of culture supports Macron

Officials from the world of culture, including Jack Lang, Olivier P and Stanislas Nordy, have called for a vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the presidential election, stressing that abstaining from the vote could benefit his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen. “They are the enemies of freedom of thought and creativity” about “Madame Le Pen and her friends” who wield power in France, censoring creators and persecuting teachers and professors, former Culture Minister Jacques Lang told AFP. And the researchers… are inhabited by hatred of Arabs, Muslims and Jews…”, added the head of the Arab World Institute, who said that the National Front candidate “will lead a policy of exclusion and discrimination against these cultural societies.”

Sami Namli from Les Inspirations ECO