French students demonstrated outside the Sorbonne Paris and other universities Thursday to protest the presidential election choice. They shouted “Neither Macron nor Le Pen”
The student protests, which are taking place 10 days before the presidential election pits Marine Le Pen against incumbent Emmanuel Macron as the main opposition to the far-right leader, is another indication that Macron cannot count on voters rejecting him en masse.
A few hundred people gathered in Paris’s Latin quarter to the Sorbonne, which has been the epicenter of many student rebellions throughout France, including the May 1968 uprising.
“We are tired of having to vote for the lesser of the two and that is what has prompted this revolt. Reuters was told by Anais Jacquemars (20-year-old philosophy student at Sorbonne) that Macron and Le Pen are not compatible.
All left-leaning candidates were eliminated in round one of the election, April 10. Many students stated that they would rather not vote for Macron than abstain from the runoff to stop Le Pen winning power.
Some claimed that Macron’s first term as president was too right-leaning. They cited police brutality against Yellow Vest protestors and measures to curb what Macron calls “Islamist Separatism”.
Gabriel Vergne, a student at the elite Sciences-Po school, said that he plans to abstain and advised everyone to do so. He voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round, which was won by the left-wing firebrand. The runoff was missed by only 400,000 votes.
“I believe the fight does not lie in the ballot box. This election is largely discredited today… it has become necessary for us to fight on other fronts,” Vergne stated, calling for strikes in unions.
Macron’s camp is increasingly concerned about the rejection of the “republican front” by left-wing voters. This means that French voters typically support the mainstream candidate in a contest with a far-right contender.
Opinion polls indicate that the race between the candidates is very close. Macron leads by a 5–10 point margin over Le Pen. This means that a Le Pen win is possible.
Students calling for voters to abstain from this election are starkly different to the situation in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen (founder of the far-right National Front) and Marine Le Pen’s dad, was facing then President Jacques Chirac.
Students protested in large numbers across France against Jean-Marie Le Pen’s unexpected qualification for the final round. They urged French citizens to vote for Chirac (a conservative) who won with more than 82% of the vote.
Since then, the National Front has been renamed to the National Rally under Marine Le Pen.
Alexis, 23, a 23-year-old philosophy student at Sorbonne, stated that the National Front is currently in the second round. It is very close to winning. People are protesting more against Macron than the National Front.
He said, “It’s terrible. I think it’s failure because it contributes the normalisation of ideas of the National Front.” He declined to name who he would vote for.
