PARIS (Reuters) – French students demonstrated outside the Sorbonne and other universities on Thursday, expressing their disillusionment with the choice offered in the presidential election, to cries of “Ni Macron ni Le Pen”.
Ten days before the second round of a presidential election that pits far-right candidate Marine Le Pen against incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, student protests are another sign that the president can no longer count on the massive rejection of the extreme right by voters.
In front of the Sorbonne, where many student revolts took place, in particular the events of May 68, a few hundred students had gathered.
“We are tired of always having to vote out of spite, to vote for the least worse, that’s what this revolt really expresses more than ‘Ni Macron ni Le Pen,’ explained Anais Jacquemars, a 20-year-old philosophy student. .
All the left-wing candidates were eliminated in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday April 10. Several students said they would rather abstain than vote for Emmanuel Macron to prevent Marine Le Pen from becoming president.
Some felt that the policies implemented by the French president during his five-year term were too right-wing, citing as examples the police brutality against the Yellow Vests or the measures aimed at suppressing what Emmanuel Macron calls “Islamist separatism”. “.
“I think abstaining, I advise everyone to abstain,” said Gabriel Vergne, a 19-year-old Sciences Po student. On April 10, he voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round of the election.
“I think that the struggle is no longer being played out at the ballot box. Today, these elections are largely discredited, and therefore it is necessary to take the fight to other fronts,” he added.
Fears of rejection by left-wing voters of the “republican front” are growing in Emmanuel Macron’s camp. Polls show that the gap between the two candidates is extremely tight, with Emmanuel Macron enjoying a narrow lead of 5 to 10 points over Marine Le Pen.
(Report Michel Rose and Anthony Paone; French version Camille Raynaud)