“Green voting still works“: Yannick Jadot has been repeating it in all tones in recent days, and again on Thursday evening in a meeting. “The useful vote is always the vote of conviction” hammered the environmental candidate in Nantes. And for good reason: one of the phenomena of this end of the campaign is the noisy migration of a handful of activists from the Ecologist Pole to Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
To avoid the reissue of the second round of 2017 – Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen – these activists have made it known loudly, on social networks and in a column published yesterday, that they will finally vote “useful“, for the left-wing candidate in the lead in the polls. And they were suspended from their party. Because a scenario paralyzes Yannick Jadot and his supporters: a larger loss not of activists, but of voters, also sucked in by the useful vote.A movement that would put Yannick Jadot below 5% on Sunday.In the latest Ipsos-Sopra Steria barometer, the environmental candidate was credited with 5.5% of the vote.
5% is the threshold above which the State reimburses the costs incurred during the campaign. Below, it is Yannick Jadot and the parties that support him who alone absorb the cost of the campaign. 8 million euros… The scenario gives cold sweats to Europe Écologie Les Verts. “I don’t answer any questions about the 5%” swept a leader this week, as if to ward off fate. Another more loquacious explains the issue: “8 million euros on a campaign, it has never been done with us. If we do less than 5%, the party is down, threatened with extinction.”
Whose fault is it ? That’s what happens internally. The future congress to renew the direction. He will oppose those who want to overwhelm Yannick Jadot and the management of EELV for this campaign “centrist, without radicalism“, and those who will have at heart precisely to defend these orientations. “It was important to show that the ecologists could make a serious campaign“, already defends Marine Tondelier, spokesperson for Yannick Jadot, to our colleagues at AFP.
Europe Ecologie The Greens is not the only party confronted with this “helpful vote trap“. The debate is also raging in the French Communist Party, as evidenced by this tweet from MP Elsa Faucillon.
There is loyalty, it is important. There may even be conflicts of loyalty but 3 days before the election when I see left-wing candidates doing everything to ensure that a left-wing candidate is not in the second round, while the far right is at the gates, I enrage!
— Elsa Faucillon (@ElsaFaucillon) April 7, 2022
There had been debate in the PCF at the approach of the presidential election, between presenting an independent campaign, and allying with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France Insoumise. Fabien Roussel’s line won, and the party’s national secretary announced his candidacy last spring. “If we are below 5%, those who have supported the autonomous strategy will be weakened” gives me a frame, aiming for Fabien Roussel. “But with us, there will be no settling of accounts“, specifies the same to me.