“It’s reassuring, it’s done,” said Jérémy, a French citizen residing in Quebec, without enthusiasm, a few minutes after the confirmation of the re-election of President Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen. Like about fifty of his compatriots, he came to have a drink at the Union française, on rue Viger in Montreal, to watch the election night live.
An enthusiastic clamor rises from the crowd gathered in the small room, feverish before the announcement of the results. An enthusiasm, however, that many people encountered by The duty claim not to feel the idea of a second five-year term of the current president.
“We voted to block the far right”, expresses with spite Florence, an activist of rebellious France, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The left-wing formation is the one that obtained the highest percentage of votes in Montreal during the first ballot.
This time, it was Macron who won overwhelmingly with 87.63% of the vote, according to figures from the Consulate General of France in Montreal. A little over 25,000 people exercised their right to vote on Saturday at the Palais des Congrès, for a participation rate of barely 38%.
For this other French citizen who has lived in Quebec for two decades and who preferred to remain anonymous, a victory for Le Pen could have led to a “civil war”. “Put a far-right party in power and tongues will loosen,” she warns, seated at the bar. “People are going to give themselves the right to express the rejection of the other, and that’s what’s frightening,” she predicts, before becoming alarmed at the fact that the civil war would be “latent in France, and it will be economic and ethnic. »
Tough election for the left
Mostly made up of people in their thirties, the crowd present at the transpartisan rally gives their most generous applause to Jean-Luc Mélenchon when he appears on the giant screen where France 2 election night is broadcast. Some applause rings out when he asserts that “Macron’s ecological inaction is a crime”.
For Clémence, there is no doubt. The doctoral student in forest ecology at the University of Quebec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue arrived in Quebec in June 2021 and resides in Rouyn-Noranda. She traveled seven hours to cast her blank vote in the ballot box. “Ecology should be at the heart of their programs,” laments the one who supported Anne Hidalgo in the first round. “No matter the result, I’m sad, mixed, disappointed,” she adds. The election falls at the time of the war, which means that no one has spoken of the latest IPCC report “published three weeks ago.
Thibault, militant of rebellious France, abounds in the same direction. Seated with two Macronist activists, the one who voted for the president deplores an election which seems to him superfluous. “It’s a bit of a travesty of voting. We were forced by the arm by blocking the far right, he believes. In a way, the president will have institutional legitimacy, but not democratic. »
Jean, a federal civil servant, meanwhile is enthusiastic about Macron’s victory, referring to his “international cooperation policies.” “Coming with his 11-year-old son, he points to him smiling: “This morning, he told me that if Le Pen is elected, it’s death for Ukraine. »
Anything but Macron
Seated at the back of the bar, near large trays where ham and chicken sandwiches are enthroned, Sarah and Romain are the only two people met by The duty who support Marine Le Pen.
“Macron, it is his arrogance that gives me a problem, he is the president of the rich and powerful”, condemns the truck driver. Just like his entourage, his vote is one of protest against the current president. “My sister and her husband voted for Mélenchon in the first round, but it’s out of the question for them to vote for Macron,” she says. They would even have voted Zemmour if it had been his opponent in the second round. »
His companion, Romain, has been somewhat chilled by the McKinsey affair, which concerns revelations according to which this American consulting firm has pocketed up to millions of dollars to advise the French government on its vaccination campaign against COVID-19 . “Did we vote for a French president or is the United States leading us? asks Romain.
During the president’s speech, broadcast more than an hour after the announcement of the results, there are only about twenty people left in the room. They listen silently, then get up and go back to their business, as if nothing had really changed.