The final results after the first round of the presidential election have come in: Jean-Luc Mélenchon won 21.95% of the vote, carried in particular by young people, according to polling institutes, who voted for the candidate, specifically in the Paris region. where it comes first in several departments. As in Gentilly, in Val-de-Marne, where franceinfo met them.
In this city of 16,000 inhabitants, the rebel won 44.34% of the vote. We stop at a cafe in town, where young voters are debriefing the first round. Stéphane is still stunned by the defeat of his candidate: “Compared to what we need and the demands we have, it is the one that is the most credible.”
I do not understand how today people could still vote Macron after five years of brothel? I can not understand.”
For Stéphane, this LFI vote was self-evident: “For example, I am a civil servant: he wants to help civil servants! He wants to help young people. He wants to do training aid. I think people had a hard time voting for him in relation to the character, the megalomaniac side , the side a little centered on himself, a little bit imbued. It is the image that people have retained but in itself, it is his most solid program.”
The personality of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is precisely what seduced Mamadou and Rémi. Great is also their disappointment at not seeing this candidate who, they say, “looks like them”, reach the second round. Disappointment mixed with resentment.
“He thinks like us, he talks like us, when there’s something that annoys him, he gets angry like us, and he seems to be frank. In any case more frank than the others.”
“Afterwards, there are of course things that we like or don’t like about him, Mamadou nuance. But hey, compared to Marine Le Pen, compared to a Macron or compared to Zemmour, there is no comparison. All the people I know vote Mélenchon, all the people I have seen on my networks vote Mélenchon. And as if by chance, it was Macron and Le Pen who came back. It’s a little disappointing, especially when you see that there have been disagreements in their party…”
Their candidate eliminated, the LFI voters are divided for the future, between blank vote, abstention or Marine le Pen in the second round, on April 24. Stéphane’s choice is fixed, sealed and it will not move. He had no hesitation in voting Mélenchon in the first round, and will have no more for the second. He will vote National Rally because voting Macron is impossible for this thirty-year-old.“I can’t vote for a guy who’s done this much shit to us for five years, I can’t, he insists. I fought against him for five months, I went to demonstrations, I went everywhere against him. So I can’t vote for him and I don’t want to follow Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s recommendations.”
“Being led by such a party is not insignificant, he continues. But frankly, I think I would take the risk. Me, personally, I would take the risk of change in this country and maybe it will be Marine Le Pen. Why not ? Me, I voted for Emmanuel Macron five years ago to counter the National Front. I saw what he did. It helped only the slightly more affluent classes. I who am hardworking, frankly, I do not see the end of the tunnel.
“I’d rather try something else, than stay another five more years with Emmanuel Macron and tell myself that I voted for him again, I couldn’t.”
In Mamadou’s mind, it’s rather confusing: “I think it’s Macron who will pass so… I may vote white?” For Rémi, a young Melenchonist, it will be neither: neither Macron nor Le Pen. There are two options left: “I don’t think I’m going to vote, or else, he said, I will vote blank. I don’t like either of them. We are going to stop thinking like in previous years by telling ourselves that we are going to vote for the least worst of the worst. I will stop thinking like that. Because in the end, it’s useless.” Rémi regrets that the divisions within the parties have, according to him, led to the defeat of his candidate.