It’s all or nothing for the five friends. Virgine Paoli, Michel Daffa, Michel Sidoroff and the sisters Nicole and Michelle Sigal all came to the Lou Pascalou bar on Sunday evening to follow the election night. The five friends sit at a small red table in front of beer and red wine. They are seated so that they can all see the big screen showing the live broadcast.
There are still an hour and a half before the first projection is expected. The bar they came to is in the old working-class and artistic district of Ménilmontant in the north of Paris. This area has always been left-leaning – and judging by the audience tonight, it still is.
Paoli, Daffa, Sidoroff and the Sigal sisters are between 50 and 65 years old, they are all “from the artistic milieu”, as they say, and all voted for the left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. And one thing is certain for the five of them even before the result this evening: they will not vote for Emmanuel Macron if he ends up in the runoff with Marine Le Pen.
“Macron was an experiment. But he attacked our social achievements,” says Nicole Sigal. The writer, with red hair and a green down jacket, did not vote for Macron five years ago, neither in the first nor in the second ballot.
“The middle class is desperate”
For the group of friends, Mélenchon is the only one who opposes the trend of further “running down” the welfare state. “It’s a trend that’s happening all over Europe, including you in Germany,” says Michel Sidoroff. And if Mélenchon does not move into the runoff, but the right-wing extremist Le Pen? What if she even became president? Part of the group shrugs.
Michel Sodoroff says: “That’s their problem.” The director, who works a lot for radio, also says: “That would lead to a social crisis, that could be interesting.” Maybe that’s what France needs.
Virgine Paoli, long blond hair, black jacket, leans forward on the table. She has to talk loud – the bar is gradually filling up. The television is still on. “The middle class is desperate,” says the visual artist. “I feel it very strongly.” Your money will last until the end of the month. But she wonders for how much longer.
Boos for Zemmour – and Macron
Michel Daffa also sees it similarly. He works as an architect, mainly building buildings for social housing. “Macron is the president of money,” he says. The group talks about the work that is no longer paid properly. And the general practitioners who will no longer be replaced. “We know a lot of people who say their doctors are retiring and nobody is coming,” says Paoli.
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Shortly before 8 p.m. the television is turned on loud. When the reporter from Emmanuel Macron’s party headquarters is shown, not only the table boos, but the whole pub. Only Éric Zemmour boos louder. The guests in the pub count down the ten seconds before 8 p.m., like on New Year’s Eve. Then the results will be displayed.
Macron in first place, further ahead than previously thought, and Le Pen in second place. There is hooting in the pub: many boos seem to be mixed with a few cheers. The table with the friends booed, their faces showing a mixture of disappointment and anger. When Mélenchon’s score is displayed, they clap.
After that, the group of friends didn’t have much to say: “It’s a nightmare,” says Nicole Sigal. “It’s social and democratic destruction.” But the artists stick with it: They don’t want to vote for Macron. Sidoroff does not believe that Le Pen’s government would have worse effects on foreigners and migrants. Macron also pursued a tough migration policy and passed racist laws.
Just ten minutes after the first projection was given, the television broadcast in the bar was muted again, and the bartender turned on music instead. Nicole Sigal leans back in her chair: “Now all we have left is resistance on the street.”
