“Me, if Marine Le Pen removes from her program the ban on the veil in public places, I will vote for her in the second round. Salman is in his third year of a bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Lille in northern France. Like more than 10,000 Lille supporters who filled three-quarters of the Grand Palais, he came to attend the last campaign meeting of his candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. While the latest polls announce an increasingly tight duel between Emmanuel Macron (28%) and Marine Le Pen (23%) in the second round, the one who appears to be the third man in this campaign is struggling to exceed the 15% that would bridge the gap that separates him from the leader of the National Rally.
Son of Moroccan immigrants who came to France for work, Salman is one of those whom Mélenchon designates in his colorful prose as the “angry not fachos”.
If he does not yet count in these 21% of voters of La France insoumise who, according to a study by CÉVIPOF, are ready to rally to Marine Le Pen after the first round of April 10, he is not far from it. . Moreover, he confides, “I love Mélenchon, but I find that he does not talk enough about immigration”. “It must be said: there is an immigration problem in France. People who hesitate between Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen, I know plenty of them. »
The “useful vote”
It is to people like him that the tribune of the radical left addressed during this last assembly broadcast simultaneously by hologram in 11 other cities of France. Mélenchon is one of the few politicians to use this technology, a gadget that does not cost very much, already used in 2017 and which is supposed to attract young people, it is said in his entourage. At least he gives the candidate a modernist veneer that does not seem to displease him.
Because, for Mélenchon, it’s this time or never. At 70, the veteran who is in his third presidential election would like to finish in style. This is why half of his speech is devoted to Marine Le Pen, who is vying with him for the vote of popular circles and from whom he dreams of taking second place.
If the speaker who is not afraid to affirm that “the wheel of history and its gears pass through us”, he also knows how to be more trivial by evoking this “lady who loves cats”. Laughter and applause assured when he launches: “Where does it lead us to bring this woman to power? “It must be said that Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon have an old dispute. The first time he met her on a television set, in 2002, he exclaimed: “Who is she? His attempt to beat her at Hénin-Beaumont, in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, had ended in failure.
In Lille, the candidate meticulously peels the program of the one who, he says, “knows nothing about the people”. He doesn’t hesitate to boo her either. It’s fair game: after all, it’s only in the assemblies of Emmanuel Macron that we don’t have the right to boo the opponents.
According to a study by the Jean Jaurès Foundation, it would not be entirely impossible for Mélenchon to cross the course of the second round if the “useful vote” of the left were to fall on him. But with a left that barely totals 25% of the vote, the postponement would have to be massive. However, since the resignation with a crash of Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the Socialist Party, in 2008, the grudges are stubborn on the left.
Especially since this year, Mélenchon is deprived of the votes of the Communist Party, with which he had made an alliance in 2012 and 2017. The relative success of the Communist candidate Fabien Roussel, around 4%, could also explain why Jean-Luc Mélenchon seems this year to be outdistanced by Marine Le Pen. Roussel also made people talk about him in this campaign by distinguishing himself by praising “good wine”, “good meat”, “good cheese” and “French gastronomy”, which raised the ire of some environmentalists.
“It’s called democracy”
A former secular admirer of Saint-Just and Robespierre, Jean-Luc Mélenchon boasts in each of his speeches of the “creolization of France” and makes himself a defender of “gender freedom”. But that’s not what worries Sabine. What she retains above all from her program is the return to 60 of the retirement age now set at 62 and that several candidates wish to raise to 64 or 65. At 55, this patient attendant believes that retirement at 60 is far from a luxury, especially with the tendonitis she developed at work.
Emmanuel Macron’s choice to wear it to 65 makes her angry. “I don’t recognize myself, she said, in this kid who now leads France”. She would like to believe that there is “a mouse hole” in which Mélenchon could climb in the second round on Sunday.
A few days ago, in a forum, 2000 personalities called to vote for Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Among them, we find as usual a certain number of artists, such as Romane Bohringer and Anny Durerey. This platform also made the singer Françoise Hardy react, according to whom “Macron is a furious madman”.
The former Lambertist Trotskyist and admirer of Hugo Chavez also received encouragement from the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, and former President Lula. Before concluding in Lille what could be his last speech as a candidate by denouncing what he calls “the little music of resignation”.
In 2017, in the second round, Jean-Luc Mélenchon refused to call for a vote for Emmanuel Macron, but specified that “not a voice will go to the far right”. No one knows if he will do the same this year, but he announced that, unusually, he would consult with his troops. On the LCI channel, he declared that “if Marine Le Pen is elected, she will be President of the French Republic and you will have to suffer like me. It’s called democracy. »
And Mélenchon concludes: “We fight battles, we win them, we lose them. What do you want me to tell you. That’s life. »