Disappointed hope for the parliamentary elections

Bénédicte Monville, Fatiya Ammad Mothay and Djmila Smaali Paillé also want to use the very last minutes of this election campaign. Their mission is anything but easy for them, but what has to be, has to be. On Friday evening around 5:30 p.m., election campaigning is only allowed until midnight, they get out of the car in the Montaigu district. Located north of Melun, it is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. In the last presidential election, 85 percent of those eligible to vote abstained. That’s why the three women came here. They want to convince as many people as possible to vote on Sunday. For whom, they don’t say. They just say no vote for Le Pen.

All three supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first ballot. The recent runoff between Le Pen and Macron is a great source of frustration for them. But they agree that Marine Le Pen’s victory must be prevented at all costs. You don’t have to convince one of the women selling oriental specialties in a parking lot. As a Muslim, you have to vote for Macron, she sighs with a shrug. And make sure to vote.

A left, ecological balance

In front of one of the typical 1970s social housing buildings – a beige-grey beam that urgently needs to be renovated – the women meet Yassine, dark hair, full beard, tracksuit jacket and cap. He’s actually in a hurry, but then he gets involved in a brief conversation; he knows the women because they have been involved in local politics for years. Yassine, who works for the city, is particularly frustrated with the leadership of the municipality – and the mayor is a Macronist.

The women agree with him, they all sit in the opposition of the city parliament. But you shouldn’t vote for Le Pen on Sunday, says Monville. Yassine doesn’t seem entirely convinced. Smaali Paillé adds: “Imagine your mother walking in the neighborhood at some point in the next few months and getting a fine for it.” She alludes to the headscarf ban in public spaces that Marine Le Pen wants to enact. Such a law would mean a civil war here, Yassine then says. He spots two acquaintances on motorcycles waiting at the intersection. “You have to vote!” Yassine calls out to them. They laugh, someone calls back: “We will choose in the third round.”

The three campaigners are also hoping for this third round – the parliamentary elections in mid-June. The goal: to establish a social and ecological counterweight to the new president. Bénédicte Monville will even stand as a candidate himself, whether for the Greens or for Mélenchon’s movement is yet to be decided. Positioned on the left wing of the Green Party, she decided to vote for Emmanuel Macron on Sunday; with a heavy heart and a stifled cry, like on hers Facebook site writes. But the extreme right has never been so close to seizing power. Smaali Paillé did the same, while Ammad Mothay submitted a blank ballot.

That would have been out of the question for the Cléments – after all, choosing is a privilege, says Catherine. She voted with her husband on Sunday shortly before noon in a school in the 16th arrondissement of Paris – like her husband, Emmanuel Macron. He received the most votes in the first round in this affluent district, with right-wing extremist Éric Zemmour coming in second. The Cléments suspect that this is probably due to the significant proportion of devout Catholics – but there is not only that in the 16th. “We see ourselves more on the left of the political spectrum,” says Catherine’s husband Jean. Nevertheless, they would have both voted for Emmanuel Macron in the first round. He did a relatively good job, especially in view of all these crises. They don’t say it outright, but they’re pretty confident he’ll win the election.

The two pensioners also have clear expectations of the President. A social and ecological balance is needed, says Catherine Clément. Therefore, her husband Jean adds, this time the general election is more important than ever. The National Assembly could become a corrective force. However, they hesitate as to whether they want a majority for the Mélenchonists in parliament – ​​the left-wing foreign politician narrowly missed qualifying for the run-off election in the first round two weeks ago. “Mélenchon would certainly not be the kind of majority that would let Macron work,” says Jean Clément. The Cléments don’t want to decide who they will vote for in June until Macron has announced more about his priorities.

Hugo Le Cloerec thought long and hard about whether he should even vote this Sunday. Yes, it’s true that his age group has the highest abstention rate, he says. But in the end his fear that Marine Le Pen might make it this time was too great. He gave his mother power of attorney. The 25-year-old comes from Rennes and has not yet relocated, although he has been living in Paris for some time. Le Cloerec chose Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round – as did his three friends with whom he ended a picnic in the Parc de Belleville in the early afternoon. For them, Macron has done far too little to combat climate change; and they don’t really have any hope that things will get better in the next few years. We’ll see, they say.

Mobilized by Le Pen

Marie Dupont, on the other hand, knows what she doesn’t want to see: Macron another five years in the Élysée Palace. She stands in front of a polling station in the 12th arrondissement and smokes. He didn’t do anything for the people who had to get by with little. “I live in the 20th arrondissement,” she says, as if by way of explanation; it is a neighborhood with an above-average number of social housing units. But she resents Macron most for his Covid measures; she has not been vaccinated to date.

People said Marine Le Pen was authoritarian; Macron has already proven that he be authoritarian. Dupont, who doesn’t want her real name in the press, hopes Le Pen will care more about the humble folk. That’s why she went to vote this Sunday – unlike five years ago, when she abstained.