Anxious to oppose on almost everything in order to win the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen denounced, this time together, Friday, April 15, the blockades of faculties by students opposed to the sole prospect of see each other face off in the second round on Sunday 24 April.
Some of them who occupied the Sorbonne left the university buildings on Thursday evening. The police used tear gas to disperse protesters gathered near the Pantheon, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse on the spot. A few streets away, at Sciences Po, some 150 students blocked the entrance to the school on Thursday. Since Wednesday, hundreds of students have been mobilizing, particularly in Paris, Nancy and Reims, to protest against the result of the first round of the presidential election and to alert on ecological and social issues.
“At Sciences Po, they failed the democracy course, they skipped it, what were they doing? They left for the weekend?denounced Marine Le Pen on RMC and BFM-TV, Friday morning. We are a country which is immensely fortunate to have a democratic system. Immense. I find that these little young people should respect this democracy. » Blockages, according to her, are an activity “deeply undemocratic”.
“Purity does not exist”
They have the right to protestshe admitted, but I admit that demonstrating between two rounds of an election is quite surprising”. “I think they should rather campaign to encourage young people to vote”, she continued. In his eyes, the outcome of the second round is likely to change the situation as to the conditions for their entry into working life. She took as an example her intention, if elected, to abolish income tax for everyone under 30. However, the measure would only benefit young people who earn enough to be subject to it.
The candidate president also called, on Franceinfo, for respect for the result of the first round. “If we start challenging all the rules, it becomes anarchy”, he argued. On the merits, he was careful to add that he “strongly disagree” the fact of being thrown into the same bag as its rival. “I claim to be in the republican fielddid he declare. And when I hear what was said by the far-right candidate on how to reform the Constitution, on the return to the abolition of the death penalty, on the report to journalists and their recusal, etc. , I think we are in another category. »
The candidate for his re-election also assured that “purity does not exist”, in politics. For him, “You have to agree to choose something that may not be totally what you think, but which comes closest to it” : way, once again, to convince left-wing voters to vote for him without announcing a major concession on his project, highly contested by a large part of the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round.
The campaign manager of the candidate of the Popular Union also commented on the student mobilizations, on the airwaves of Sud Radio, Friday. “I understand the reasons, because the problem with this second round is that it will not solve any of the big questions we are facing today.said Manuel Bompard. So yes, of course, there will be a mobilization in the street, I understand it, I support it. » However, he added, “no one disputes” that the presidential election takes place “under normal democratic conditions”. And to conclude: “I tell people: stay together, because there is a third round, it is the legislative elections. »