French voters face choice of least worst option in high-stakes election

At a market in Meyzieu, a small commune on the outskirts of Lyon, Kheira Vermorel eyed a box filled with potatoes, wondering if the sizeable spuds would be enough to soothe tensions at home.

For weeks – specifically since France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, plunged the country into shock snap elections – she and her husband had been at odds. “It’s been really hard,” she said. “I’m worried it might lead to a divorce.”

At the heart of their weeks-long dispute was the forthcoming ballot. Last election Vermorel, who moved to France from Algeria 35 years ago, voted for Macron. This time, however, she was convinced that it was time to give the political class a shake by casting her vote for the far-right, anti-immigrant National Rally (RN).

“Politicians don’t show up, they talk, they always promise things but nothing happens,” said the 54-year-old. She waved off the widespread concerns about the party’s policies that target Muslims , citing how she, a practising Muslim, had learned to balance her faith with France’s secularism.

Her French husband, however, was vehemently opposed to the party’s hardline stance on immigrants. “He tells me: ‘If migrants are here, it’s because they don’t have any other choice,’” she said, citing those who live on the streets. “And he says if they’re in that situation, it’s because they’ve lost everything.”

Sunday’s first-round ballot, in which 9.4 million other French voters voted along the same lines as Vermorel, saw the far right emerge as the frontrunner, raising the temperature in an already high-stakes election. More than 200 candidates have since withdrawn from the race in an effort to build a united “republican front” capable of preventing the RN from taking power.

Whether it will succeed or not is unclear; only after this Sunday’s second, decisive ballot will France know for sure. In the meantime Vermorel had come to the market in the hope that whipping up a few of her husband’s favourite dishes might quell some of the tension. “As we’re not seeing eye to eye, I thought maybe if he eats better, he’ll remember that I cook well,” she said, with a nervous laugh.

While the “republican front” strategy has long been a mainstay of French politics, and a poll on Wednesday suggested it may yet deprive Marine Le Pen of a majority, there’s no guarantee this time around that the “block” on the far right will work. For it to do so, it will require centrist voters to back candidates from the far-left France Unbowed (LFI), and leftwing voters to line up behind candidates from Macron’s centrist alliance.

“The choice we have is either black or white,” said one 40-year-old who declined to give her name, citing her position as a public servant. “And now we’re all talking about it. What should we do? What’s the least bad option? I think that’s the real question.”

Among the first candidates to withdraw from the race was Sarah Tanzilli, a member of parliament with Macron’s Renaissance party since 2022 and centrist candidate in the constituency that includes Meyzieu. Earlier this week, even as the extent to which the president’s centrist alliance would employ tactical alliances to block the RN remained unclear, she was clear on what she had to do. “It was the only decision possible,” she said.

The ambiguity over whether Macron’s centrist candidates would drop out had been owed partly to their messaging during the campaign, as Macron sought to argue that France was facing the risk of “civil war” if either of his “extreme” opponents won a majority.

Tanzilli was swift to note that there were still elements of France Unbowed, whose leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has faced accusations of antisemitism, that rattled her. “The big difference is that there is no risk that France Unbowed will have an absolute majority in the National Assembly.”

The same could not be said for the RN, she added. “The far right stands for the opposite of liberty, equality and fraternity. So it’s extremely dangerous for our country, extremely dangerous for our ability to live together.”

Tanzilli, whose family’s roots stretch generations back to Armenia, pointed to the RN’s promise to scrap nationality rights for children born and raised in France by foreign parents as an example. “If these rights hadn’t existed when my grandparents and great-grandparents arrived in France, I wouldn’t be French.”

On Wednesday, even as the centrist alliance said that 90% of its candidates had quit three-way races if they were in third place and had an RN candidate ahead of them, it remained to be seen whether centrist voters would fall into line, said Ikrame Saidi, one of a handful of volunteers crisscrossing the market in Meyzieu, handing out flyers for the local France Unbowed candidate. Victor Prandt trailed the RN in the first round by 10%.

“It’s complicated,” said Saidi. “Several people who voted for Macron’s centrists tell us they don’t want to vote for the New Popular Front.”

Brian, 28 and a fellow volunteer, chimed in: “They’re telling us that they don’t vote for extremes. So for them, there’s an equals sign between what they consider the extreme left and the extreme right.”

Many centrists argue the radical-left France Unbowed, which believes traditional parties no longer serve democracy, does not share “republican values”.

But Brian said he saw that depiction of the party as an extension of a strategy employed by Macron since 2017, discrediting those on the left while also relying on them as a bulwark against the far right. “But there’s no equivalence to be drawn between a party that proposes nothing but racism and parties that, even if they don’t agree among themselves, have come up with a project to give people back their dignity and improve their lives.”

As rain began to drizzle over the market in Mayzieu, several people said they weren’t planning on voting. “It breaks my heart to see the bad guys,” said Làhsene Hadbe, born in France to parents with Algerian roots, pointing to the RN. “They’re extremists, racists, fascists and I hate them.”

But the sentiment wasn’t enough to move him to cast a ballot in Sunday’s election; he said he had given up hope on electoral politics in the early 1990s. “Nope,” he said. With a laugh, he added: “I would be ready to physically fight against them but not to vote against them. It’s bizarre, no?”

Others, such as Valérie Sodoyer, said she would be casting a blank vote so as not to have to make a choice. “None of them suit me,” she said.

Since arriving from Tunisia five decades ago, Saida Khlifi said she had steadily watched as the welfare state deteriorated, leaving herself and others struggling as the cost of living soared.

The situation had left her unenthused about the forthcoming election. “It’s neither here nor there,” she said. “I don’t have any confidence in anyone.”

Even so, she was determined to vote on Sunday. “To say no to Le Pen,” she said. She pointed to the party’s origin as the National Front, whose racist, antisemitic and anti-Muslim views had long been seen as a danger to democracy.

The party had put forward few ideas, she said, and had instead targeted migrants who had worked and paid taxes their whole lives, such as herself. “If already, with the others, we’re not living well, do you think that when the [RN] takes power, we’ll be able to live better?”