“When Macron called the election on the evening of the European elections, I called my children and said – you do realise we are living a historic moment,” says Juliette Vilgrain, a candidate for Horizons – a party allied to Macron – in the Seine-et-Marne department south of Paris.
“People know that violence is a possibility. People are angry and frustrated – and there are politicians who will call for violence. It’s manipulation, but that’s how it is.”
President Macron has himself even alluded to the possibility of “civil war” – saying this was the logical conclusion of the programmes of the far right and the far left.
His words – in a podcast on Monday – have been interpreted as a bid to scare voters back towards the centre, but according to Baverez that is deeply misguided.
“It’s very dangerous for him to use this word, and try to save his power by using fear. In a democracy when you play on fears, you give rise to hate and violence,” he says.
Macron’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has said the authorities are working on the assumption that there could be violent protests on the evenings of the first and second rounds (June 30 and July 7).
The nightmare scenario would be an RN victory leading to calls from the far left for demonstrations, which then turn violent and are joined by people of immigrant origin from the banlieues.
The far-left LFI has a large support base in the banlieues, and has made support for Gaza one of its main campaign themes.