In February, Ségolène Royal, a former candidate of the French Socialist Party, which narrowly lost in 2007 in the presidential elections to Nicolas Sarkozy, called for a “useful vote” in the first round for Jean-Luc Mélenchon. She had been attacked from all sides. “Then, in reality, everyone repeated a useful vote and in the end it worked, or almost,” she tells the press.
The leader of France insoumise, la gauche radical, on Sunday he obtained 21.95% of the votes, a short distance from second placed, Marine Le Pen, with 23.15%. “On the one hand, I tell myself that the left still exists in France: when you add up the results of all the candidates of the gauche it reaches 30%. But I also have a sad regret: I said it was necessary to block the far right already in the first turn. The junior candidates should have dropped out, ”he says. “It would have done honor to themselves and to the left to consider that a personal ego does not sum up the story of gauche. Which has always won by realizing convergences, because within it there are different sensitivities and this also makes it its strength. François Mitterrand did it in 1981 and he was right ».
On Mélenchon he says that «no one is perfect. And then he showed his depth, his breadth of views. He has a structured speech, he is cultured: he knows what he is talking about. It was he who made the best campaign, they also recognize him on the right. He has a very strong, sometimes bulky character. So? We are not talking about sexual assaults or the subtraction of public funds as they are seen in the spheres of current power… ».
And now Macron will vote in the ballot: “Of course, we have no choice,” he says.
What do you expect from him now? “He must deserve his vote. It started in 2017 on a policy neither right nor left, but in the end it was only right. We have had the repression of the revolt of the yellow vests, the deprivation of freedom during Covid. And the social repression attempted with the pension reform, which was punitive and did not pass. We have a degradation of the public hospital and professors and teachers who are among the lowest paid in all OECD countries. We have seen the return of a completely outdated ideology that dates back to the 1980s, whereby everything has to be privatized. The leftist electorate feels the victim of a scam and is not ready to go and vote in the ballot for Macron. He has to win them back. “
But the danger remains that Marine Le Pen will eventually win. “Nothing is ever certain in politics and the gap is small,” she explains. “You still have voting reserves: among the Republicans, in the Zemmour movement and also among the disappointed in Mélenchon, in the popular categories. And then Le Pen has a social program, which has marked an evolution compared to the past ».
But has it really changed? «You have worked, you have studied. She has reasoned about her program, she is attentive to the needs of daily life: that’s all. People who are afraid of the future and can’t take it anymore, she tells herself: maybe it will change with her. There are no big sentences, big concepts in her program, but it can work in the eyes of the working class. I also think that the female dimension is an advantage for her, in a context of great brutality, violence. Everyone has been shaken by crisis and repetition. There was no empathy, kindness, gentleness, tolerance. Everything was prohibition and repression. Her being her woman can help her. “
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