Presidential: “The anger of the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon first targets Emmanuel Macron”

On Saturday evening, the party La France insoumise (LFI) will publish the results of the popular consultation it has proposed for the second round of the presidential election between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. The voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon now constitute the third political force in the country. Their vote, or their neutrality, is in fact a major issue in the second round of this election. Insight from Erwan Lecoeur, political scientist and far-right specialist. The leader of the La France insoumise (LFI) party and unsuccessful presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon launched, on Wednesday April 13, the consultation of his 310,000 supporters for the second round, which opposes Emmanuel Macron (LREM, 27, 84%) to Marine Le Pen (RN, 23.15%). On LFI’s militant platform, Action Populaire, this meeting between the party and its militant base will end on Saturday April 16 at 8 p.m. “Abstention, blank vote or Emmanuel Macron vote”: these are the three choices that the leader of the left-wing party submits to the judgment of his activists. Only one alternative, therefore, is excluded: to file a ballot bearing the name of Marine Le Pen. Undoubtedly scalded by the criticisms that were addressed to him during the in-between rounds of the presidential election of spring 2017, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has left less room for ambiguity this year, and this from the first minutes which followed the announcement of the results of the 1st round. “We must not give a single vote to Mrs. Le Pen”, repeated the tribune no less than four times. Representing 21.95% of voters in the 1st round, the electorate of the third party of the new French political landscape constitutes a reservoir crucial vote for the two candidates in the running. Spoils of war to win in order to win at the polls in the ultimate political battle, the second round of the presidential election on April 24. Among the main axes of Marine Le Pen’s campaign over this interlude, is the fiber “everything but Macron”, widespread within several electorates. The desire to turn the page Macron would push some within the rebellious electorate to vote for the far-right candidate, if we are to believe the polling institutes. The porosity between the electorates of the RN and LFI concerns only a minority of the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, it could nevertheless indeed contribute to a victory of Marine Le Pen, if it is coupled with an abstention of the “people on the left”: this is explained by Erwan Lecoeur, political scientist, sociologist, specialist on the far right and associate researcher at the Pacte laboratory in Grenoble.France 24: The latest Ipsos poll to date announces, among the voters of Jean -Luc Mélenchon, 37% of intention to vote in favor of Emmanuel Macron, against 18% for Marine Le Pen, the remaining 45% not being expressed. What lessons can be learned from this survey? What is the socio-economic and ideological profile of these 18% who would be ready to give their vote to the National Rally? Erwan Lecœur: First observation: for the first time, we feel that not only are there no longer any Republican Front, but that even among left-wing activists, who nevertheless traditionally have an anti-Le Pen reflex, this automatism is declining; many can abstain or vote blank. As for these 18%, they essentially correspond to rather popular and depoliticized categories: they believe that the divide between left and right no longer explains public affairs today, like 40% of all French people. How to decipher their approach? These 18% are above all “angry not fachos”, to use a formula from Jean-Luc Mélenchon. As in Brazil, Italy or the United States, an increasingly large portion of the population feels wronged and only experiences politics through its multiple anger. These populations no longer reason in terms of political parties, but through the prism of frustrations to which politicians no longer respond. They voted Mélenchon because they are angry, but this resentment is first directed against Emmanuel Macron, and not primarily against Marine Le Pen, since she was not in the spheres of power. The anger of these 18% , if they vote in the second round, will therefore logically go first against the political leader guilty, according to them, of their situation: Emmanuel Macron. From the evening of the first round, Marine Le Pen took care to “address to all those who did not vote for Emmanuel Macron”, and de facto to the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, towards whom she multiplies charm operations every day. Can this strategy hit the bull’s eye within the LFI electorate? Allow me first to recall other figures: on the evening of the first round, the polls announced among the voters of Mélenchon, about 40% abstention and of blank votes, 30% of votes in favor of the Head of State and 20% for the National Rally. by Jean-Luc Melenchon. The anger of the rebellious voters on the evening of the first round, that of having missed the qualification by so little (421,000 votes) caused a relative majority to say to themselves: “Since it is like that, I will not save the soldier Macron, it is out of the question that we voters on the left are flying to the aid, for the third time, of the “right-wing” candidate against the far right, following the election of Jacques Chirac in 2002 against Jean-Marie Le Pen , then that of Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen in 2017″. , and what this trend could therefore contribute to a victory for Marine Le Pen. Neither the polls nor the most experienced political scientists, to date, completely exclude the scenario of an Élysée conquered by the far right. This is a first in the history of the Fifth Republic. First frustrated and as if moved by a stroke of blood, would the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon finally be won over by fear of the RN? It’s true, that’s exactly what is happening. For the first time, a number of connoisseurs of the National Rally, political scientists such as those of Cevipof, polling institutes, see that there is an unresolved anger in our society, on the side of the Yellow Vests in particular, and that it could turn into a rather preferential vote for Marine Le Pen in the second round, on the basis of an anti-Macron posture. Bearing on socio-economic and ecological areas, the anger of Mélenchon voters is first and foremost directed against the head of state. But this electorate transits, as you say, from a preliminary anger against Emmanuel Macron to a fear that with Marine Le Pen reaching the top of the state, it would be much worse. This is what is at stake in the days to come, and will mean that – perhaps and in the end – Marine Le Pen will not be elected. From the start of her campaign, Marine Le Pen relegated the traditional far-right discourse on the “great replacement” to the background, in favor of a crusade against the “great downgrading”. At the antipodes of Macronian diplomacy, his position on a number of international issues could also, a priori, join those of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But ultimately, can these convergences sufficiently impact the electorate of La France insoumise? Yes, and this impact affects two distinct audiences. He can first push a fringe of Mélenchonists to vote for the National Rally, certainly a minority fringe, but which could nevertheless be enough to ensure an electoral victory for Marine Le Pen. Moreover, these convergences (real or supposed) between the two visions politicians can sow confusion in the ranks of another part of the rebellious electorate, confusion that could be summed up by this type of questioning: “Why would I vote for Emmanuel Macron while Marine Le Pen joins La France insoumise on our choices vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine, NATO, on pensions, or even on the subject of the citizens’ initiative referendum (RIC) promoted by the Yellow Vests?” If faced with a “people of the left “won over by confusion, the “populist people”, whom Marine Le Pen has been working on for years, would come, unless they abstained on April 24, what we political scientists refer to as the “differential level of abstention” would inexorably shift in favour of the National Rally. France would then experience a “political accident”: the accession of Marine Le Pen to the Élysée Palace, even though a majority of French people remain incompatible with its political and ideological DNA.