Two remaining candidates fight for same political terrain as May 7 vote approaches
A man kicks back a tear gas canister at police in Paris on April 27, 2017 during a demonstration against the results of the first round of the presidential election. (Lionel Bonaventure/Getty Images)
“Il est un gigolo.”
With that, the waitress dismissed France’s front-runner for president, Emmanuel Macron, as swiftly as she carried away the empty dishes.
Two weeks later, after the results of the first round of voting on April 23 pit centrist Macron head-to-head with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, the waitress, who gave her name as Lucie, was forced to reconsider.
“It’s not much of a choice,” she said standing among the empty tables of the central Paris restaurant where she works. She wavered repeatedly between putting Macron ahead of Le Pen and not choosing at all.
The historic first round of voting redrew France’s political map and lines are necessarily shifting again. French citizens who may be following the old advice of voting with their hearts in the first round, then with their heads in the second, are now in the fraught process of a quick rethink before the May 7 vote that will determine their country’s next leader.
Emmanuel Macron, left, and Marine Le Pen will go head-to-head in the second round of France’s presidential election on May 7. Many voters aren’t thrilled with their options. (Christian Hartmann/Reuters)
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