France now faces a frantic electoral fortnight after Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen made it to the second round of the presidential election, with the two remaining candidates attempting to convince the country’s voters – many of whom do not support them – that they deserve their vote in a fortnight.
For many of France’s almost 48 million voters, this will be a difficult time, particularly for those on the left of the political spectrum. Many will be asking themselves whether to select what they consider the least bad option between the centrist Emmanuel Macron or far-right Marine Le Pen, or stay at home and not vote at all.
There will be calls to persuade them to vote for Macron in a “republican barrage” to stop the far right entering the Élysée. The term dates from a time when the far right was seen as beyond the pale and not representative of the values of the French Republic, but is now contested after Le Pen’s efforts to detoxify her National Rally party.
The same calls were heard in 2017, when Macron also faced off against Le Pen, and in 2002, when Jacques Chirac faced her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
For supporters of the radical left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round, this may be too bitter a pill to swallow.
He told his voters on Sunday: “We know who we will never vote for. Don’t give your votes for Madame Le Pen. We must not give a single vote for Madame Le Pen.” But leftwing voters like Stéphane Van Son, 62, a former travel agent, from Paris, a onetime Parti Socialiste voter turned Mélenchon supporter, have been left politically orphaned by Sunday’s result. “It’s terrible. I don’t know. I just don’t know,” he said. “It’s the choice between the plague and cholera. I’m not even sure I will even go and vote in two weeks.”
He added: “The left is in pieces and despite all his faults, I believe Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the only candidate who could change things. Instead we had all these micro-candidates on the left. It was pitiful.”
Moroccan-born French citizen Hamid Chriet, 35, a political commentator and Mélenchon supporter, said many voters felt frustrated. “I think I will not vote in the second round,” he said. “Seriously, I’m not bothered now. I don’t want Emmanuel Macron and I don’t want Marine Le Pen. For me they’re the same.”
Chriet added: “It’s obvious that there is a deep democratic crisis. Since the yellow vests crisis nothing has been rebuilt. The greatest political force in France is now ‘degagisme’ [clear off],” Chriet said. “We can imagine that Mélenchon’s revenge will be in the legislative elections [in June].”
Opinion polls published before the first vote suggest Macron will win the second round against Le Pen on 24 April by 52% to 48%.
A key campaign moment in the next two weeks will be a debate between Macron, 44, and Le Pen, 53, which could sway undecided voters. In 2017, the two-and-a-half hour debate saw Macron and Le Pen trade personal insults, and the far right candidate’s aggressive performance was declared not just unconvincing, but damaging.
Vital to who will become France’s next president will be the decision of voters for eliminated first-round candidates.
After the result, the mainstream-right candidate Valérie Pécresse of Les Républicains said she would vote for Macron in the second round. She said this was a personal decision, but she advised supporters to think carefully about voting otherwise.
“I believe like Jacques Chirac, that everything in France’s soul rejects extremism,” she said. “Marine Le Pen’s project would lead the country to disorder, weakness and failure.”
On the left, the Communist party candidate Fabien Roussel, the Ecology party candidate Yannick Jadot and the Socialist party candidate Anne Hidalgo have already said they will call for a vote to prevent Le Pen reaching the Élysée – rather than a vote for Macron.
A Harris Interactive study examined possible second-round intentions to vote in a runoff between Macron and Le Pen. It found 34% of Mélenchon voters would vote for Macron and 21% Le Pen, but 45% would abstain or spoil their vote. Only 8% of Éric Zemmour voters would support Macron and 84% Le Pen, and only 8% would abstain. As expected, Zemmour called on them to back her on Sunday – despite “the differences we have had”.
Of those who voted for Hidalgo, 53% could vote for Macron and 16% for Le Pen, but 31% would abstain; those for Pécresse would vote 46% for Macron, 33% for Le Pen, and 21% abstain.
Modern French presidents have had a hard time getting re-elected for a second term in office. The previous two French leaders, the Socialist party’s François Hollande and the mainstream right president Nicolas Sarkozy, served only one term, and the conservative Chirac only won his second presidential election because voters supported him against the surprise second-round rival Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, of the far-right Front National. After France’s postwar leader Charles de Gaulle, only one other president has won two terms: the socialist François Mitterrand, who led France from 1981 to 1995.
