The exclusion of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melanson and the conservative François Fillon in the first round of the French presidential election has left a bitter taste in many voters, who refuse to choose between Marine Le Pen and Emanuel Macron, " of cholera ".
As of Monday the hashtag # SansMoi7mai (without me on May 7) has gone viral on social networking sites.
At present, the abstention rate, according to opinion polls, is estimated to reach 27% on May 7, while Macron seems to be gaining 61% against Lepen 39%.
Many voters in France are expressing their rejection of Le Pen's far right, but also of center-right candidate Macron, a former banker considered ultra-liberal, who they say will provoke a rise in the National Front by sharpening social inequalities in France.
"A second round between gray plague and financial cholera," wrote one user on Twitter, Serge Bensan, who stated that he would not vote in the second round.
"I do not choose between two fascisms," said Corinne, a supporter of Melanson. "Either way, they will bring each other to power."
One-third of the voters who voted for Melanson in the first round will abstain in the second, according to an Ifop poll published last night.
Many politicians are calling on voters to block the far-right anti-immigrant and anti-euro candidate in the name of a "democratic front".
But the rally against Le Pen is clearly smaller than it was 15 years ago, when her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was the candidate, who was defeated in the second round of the presidential election by Jacques Chirac, managing to gather only 18 % of votes.
"You who are so proud that in 15 days you will block the National Front, do not realize that you are its most loyal allies. "You can not blame us for anything, you can not give us any instructions," said Olivia Tono, a researcher at Cambridge University and a "left-wing activist" in an article published on Mediapart.
But Figion's urging his voters to choose Macron in the second round also met with reactions. Much more so since the right-wing candidate had not stopped attacking the center-right candidate in the first round of elections, presenting him as the heir of the unpopular outgoing President François Hollande.
27% of Figion voters intend to abstain from the second round or to cast "white", according to the Ifop poll.
Among them are supporters of the conservative, universal Sens commun movement, which supported Figion, who had pledged to protect family values, according to the Athens News Agency.
"How do we choose between the chaos that Marin Le Pen will bring and the political rot of Emanuel Macron?" The movement's president, Christophe Bigian, asked on Sunday.
"I would never vote for Macron in the second round. "I think mass abstinence is really preferable," a reader of the newspaper wrote in a Figaro forum.
"Between the one who wants to leave Europe and the one who offers us a Europe a la Juncker (…) white seems to me a good choice," says another reader.
Source: Newsbeast