“My mother was in Auschwitz so I couldn’t possibly go for Le Pen,” said Christian Eskenazi after casting his vote at the Lycée Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington.
The retired former chief sommelier at the Garrick Club said he had no choice but to back Emmanuel Macron for a second term.
“I find him too arrogant, but I’m pro-European and anti-Le Pen so I had to go for him. It was not a vote for a politician, it was a vote against an idea.”
Eskenazi added: “My mother survived Auschwitz but she saw her mother and father die there. She spent her life visiting schools as a witness against racism and xenophobia. She warned of the dangers of voting for the far right and the danger is still there.”
Eskenazi, one of 116,595 French voters registered in the UK, is hoping that his fellow citizens will put up an electoral “barrage to stop Le Pen”.
There was no sign of any support for Le Pen among London voters. After speaking to dozens of voters for three hours, the Guardian could not find a single voter for the far-right candidate.
Jada Odero, a politics and history student at Manchester University, was affronted to be asked how she voted.
“Of course there are no Le Pen supporters,” she said, “we’re in multicultural London and she’s just against that.”
In 2017, Macron won 95% of the London French vote against Le Pen, after winning 51.4% in the first round. This time he could do even better here after winning 55% of first round preferences. Meanwhile, Le Pen came a distant seventh in the first round with only 2.63% across the UK.
But Odero is anxious that in France, Le Pen’s popularity is on the rise. She said: “It won’t happen this time, but her stats are getting higher – people seem to be getting more and more ignorant.”
Benjamin Fourmond, a London IT worker from Blois, agreed. “If anybody voted Le Pen here they probably wouldn’t tell you. I’m more worried about Le Pen winning in five years’ time, because Macron won’t be able to run then and she’ll still be around and that’s really scary.”
Fourmond voted for the Green candidate, Yannick Jadot, in the first round. He said: “I don’t think Macron has done much for the environment. But he chose not to do anything about nuclear power stations, which in retrospect was probably a good move.”
In the first round more than one in five UK-based French expats voted for the left-wing candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who only narrowly missed making it to the final two.
Among them was marketing director Michel Lieke, who said he was drawn to Mélenchon’s promise to write off debts owed by African nations to France.
On Sunday he voted for Macron to block Le Pen. “Working and paying taxes for anyone from an immigrant background is not going to be as straightforward if Le Pen wins.”
Dual national sisters Manon, 21, and Léa Kilvington, 18, from Chertsey in Surrey were excited to be voting for the first time.
Manon said: “I’ve been hearing that a lot of young people support Le Pen in France. There’s no way that we can let Le Pen get to power, so we wanted to make the effort to come out and vote.”
Fatmire Bega-Shala, a French teacher in Feltham, also turned out to block Le Pen after troubling memories of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
She said: “My family is originally from Kosovo and growing up in France in the late 70s and 80s it was quite frightening to hear about Le Pen and the National Front. We were trying to be part of the society and he wasn’t welcoming. It is now important to stop his daughter.”
Some of the voters emerging from the Lycée polling station were more positive about Macron. French teacher Michelle Pickard said: “The first priority is to block Le Pen, but I quite approve of Macron’s policy, and he is a true European and I am too. If he wins it will be a small victory, and he will have to take on board all these voters who are not happy with him.”
Francesca Beausang, a City economist, closely allied herself with Macron. Peering from behind Chanel sunglasses she said: “Macron fits with my personal values. In 2017 I bought into the whole centrist argument he presented. And he did quite well in terms of managing Covid. He also did well in the debate whereas Le Pen struck me as absolutely venomous.”
“No one in their right mind buys that she’s any different from her father.”
Laurence Bemsafi, who also works in finance in the City, said Macron is popular in London because he is both pro-business and for social justice.
She said: “I think he’ll be fine and I try not to think about the worst.”
