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

By Ashifa Kassam
Jul 4, 2024

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 fate 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 More than 200 candidates have since withdrawn from the race in an effort to build a united “republican front” capable of preventing the RN from taking power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.”

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