With 21.95% of the vote and his third place on the presidential podium, Jean-Luc Mélenchon poses as the arbiter of this election. What are their voters going to do? Will they vote Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, or abstain? In Grigny, who voted 56.76% for the leader of La France insoumise (LFI), the question is on everyone’s lips.
And particularly in La Grande Borne, one of the working-class neighborhoods of one of the poorest municipalities in France – 45% of the population lives below the poverty line – where 70% of the population voted for the native. from Tangier. Here, very few votes will go to Marine Le Pen, if we are to believe the voters with whom 20 minutes discussed on Tuesday. But many hesitate between abstaining or voting for Emmanuel Macron, to “block” the “racist”, as they and they call the opponent of the tenant of the Elysée.
Yhannie, 23, works at Le Damier café, located east of La Grande Borne. She will vote Macron, she thinks, like her sisters, who all voted Mélenchon in the first round. “Le Pen is a bit racist. Here there are plenty of people of foreign origin, like me, explains this young woman with an Asian profile. And Macron has managed to maintain the economy despite the crises, ”she explains.
“It’s faked”
The inhabitants roughly follow Mélenchon’s instructions: “Mrs. Le Pen must not be given a single voice!” “, recommended the leader of LFI. Nevertheless, not everyone will necessarily vote for the President of the Republic. Sitting at the back of the café, Michel, 56, raises his voice when he hears another Grignoise of his age say that she is going to vote Macron.
“I’m not going to vote. It’s Macron who will come out, there’s no point in voting. In truth, I prefer no one. If Le Pen is elected and if they take up arms, we will take up arms, that’s all,” says Michel, quick to imagine a civil war. He voted Mélenchon, someone “correct, frank, and who lives with the population”, according to him, and is convinced that the elections were rigged to prevent the leader of LFI from facing Emmanuel Macron. “Why did they put him out third? Because they know he will be president. People have their freedom, I don’t feel these elections, for me they were rigged,” he told us.
A “fixing” which would justify abstention in the second round, Michel is not the only one to think like that. On the Place du Damier, opposite the café and the small burgundy and white buildings, three young people squat on the concrete slab. “It’s doctored,” says Brian, 30, “I’m not going to vote.” “Trafficked”, also answer his two companions, to justify the fact that they will not vote Macron. “He is the president of the rich, and he retires at 65,” said Saïd, 48, when he heard the question asked of these three young people. “It will be a blank vote. I have a transport company, I’m in deep shit with the increase in diesel. They lowered it by 18 cents, it’s not enough! Said complains.
” Laziness “
Leaving the Place du Damier, the path winds between small colorful buildings that undulate in the sun. We see a few wild posters with the portrait of the rebellious candidate, in the middle of fairly empty streets, at the end of the morning. A little further on, next to the Le Méridien gymnasium, two young people are smoking around a hookah.
Zack, 22, “not too much into politics”, hesitates between voting white or voting Macron, but especially appreciated Mélenchon’s 1,400 euro minimum wage proposal. Opposite the kindergarten, next to a park where children play peacefully, we also meet Mohammed, 24, who did not vote in the first round, but who should vote Macron if he does not “lazy”, he says. “I’d rather have Macron than an Islamophobic racist,” he explains. “Mélenchon came to Grigny, he has the sympathy of Grigny and the suburbs,” he adds.
The passage of the tribune in the corner marked some spirits, but not only for the good. At the Le Bornéo café, a few meters from the avenue de La Grande Borne, Mama, 46, will not vote in the second round, largely because she considers the leader of LFI “very special”, since she saw him, she assures, “catch a child in front of everyone” during his last visit to Grigny.
But opposite, a group of three men, aged 61 to 85, disagree. They will vote Macron without hesitation, to “block”, they all say in chorus. “They always stigmatize Muslims, so now we’re fed up: we vote! », justifies Larry, the youngest. “The racists, we sweep them away”, sums up the oldest. Skeptics of the Republican Front or anti-Le Pen ready to block, we will soon know in which camp La Grande Borne will switch.