“We won’t forget.” Since the publication of the results of the first round of the presidential election on Sunday April 10, the disappointed La France insoumise have found their scapegoat: Fabien Roussel. They blame the Communist Party candidate for having gathered the hundreds of thousands of votes that Jean-Luc Mélenchon missed to overtake Marine Le Pen and reach the second round against Emmanuel Macron. An analysis of the results that can be nuanced.
JLM has a 500k vote difference with Marine. You make 800k. You cost us the 2nd round. We won’t forget… pic.twitter.com/xGnikhbOmb
— Georges Mouchtaki (@CharlesPallois) April 11, 2022
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From a strictly accounting point of view, 421,420 votes separate Jean-Luc Mélenchon from Marine Le Pen. “Nothing”as Adrien Quatennens wrote on Twitter. However, Fabien Roussel collected more than 800,000 votes in the first round. “Undoubtedly, when we look at the electoral results stricto sensu, we can say that without the candidacy of Fabien Roussel, Jean-Luc Mélenchon could have been qualified for the second round”notes at the microphone of “Informed”, Monday morning on franceinfo, Brice Teinturier, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Ipsos polling institute.
According to this analysis grid, thehe absence of Fabien Roussel on the starting line would have naturally pushed the voters of the candidate “coco” and “cocorico” to turn to that of La France insoumise. “In addition, the electorate of Fabien Roussel is a very left-wing electorate who voted the last time [en 2017] rather for Jean-Luc Mélenchon”, supports the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Ipsos. This is also the opinion of sociologist Christèle Lagier, lecturer in political science at the University of Avignon.
“The Communists are a very disciplined electorate, if we had given the instruction to follow Jean-Luc Mélenchon, there is no doubt that these voices would have gone to him.”
Christèle Lagier, sociologistat franceinfo
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On Monday, the disappointment of “rebellious” voters was palpable in the comments made on franceinfo by Adrien Quatennens. The LFI coordinator wanted some “a little” to Fabien Roussel. “I remember that in November 2020, I had a discussion with [lui] who said to me: ‘Anyway, there is no prospect of a second round for the left, so I will go all the way.’ And he even said to me: ‘If there is an opportunity to qualify in the second round for one of us, I will think about it.’ And for several weeks, we have been calling him. How is it that what was possible in 2012 and 2017, that is to say our common work, not without a certain success, is no longer possible in 2022? We missed those voices. And that second round was within reach.”he regretted. “The hair of the buttocks that Jean-Luc Mélenchon lacks to be in the second round, we can name it. Yes, we missed the voices of Fabien Roussel, incontestably”he said again on France Inter.
Fabien Roussel would therefore have been for Jean-Luc Mélenchon what Christiane Taubira and Jean-Pierre Chevènement were for Lionel Jospin twenty years ago. The two candidates had gathered more than 2.1 million votes, when the socialist candidate failed in third place, “only” 200,000 votes from Jean-Marie Le Pen during the first round of the 2002 presidential election. “politics is not arithmetic”warns political scientist Manuel Cervera-Marzal, specialist in La France insoumise, contacted by franceinfo.
“It’s always more complicated than that: would the few hundred thousand votes cast on Fabien Roussel have all been towards Jean-Luc Mélenchon? Maybe not. Political life is not just about calculations. “
Pascal Perrineau, political scientistat franceinfo
Would half of Fabien Roussel’s 800,000 voters have rallied to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, if he had asked them? on the eve of the election ? asks Manuel Cervera-Marzal. We can think so, insofar as Mélenchon was the second choice of an overwhelming majority of communist voters. At the same time, we can estimate that Jean-Luc Mélenchon had already siphoned off the communist voices. Fabien Roussel fell to 2.3% when he was announced at 4.5% and that, among his 800 000 voters, a majority would have categorically refused to support Jean-Luc Mélenchon.”
It is that the useful vote played in full for Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Sunday. “Some of the voters of Yannick Jadot, Anne Hidalgo or Fabien Roussel, at the last moment, finally decided to favor the best-placed left-wing candidate”, analysis at the microphone of franceinfo Mathieu Gallard, director of studies at the polling institute Ipsos. Moreover, the programs of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Fabien Roussel, even if they “are very close on the essentials”according to Manual Cervera-Marzal, differ politically. Particularly “on nuclear matters, questions of security, questions of the Republic or of order”says Brice Teinturier.
the finally the deputy managing director of Ipsos points to the personality of the leader of the “rebellious”. “He doesn’t haveidea for there to be, for the third time, a non-communist candidacy, he observes. Relations have soured between the two teams, we cannot blame Fabien Roussel exclusively.”