Aminata was feeling “pretty frustrated” as she made her way home from her law studies class. The 19-year-old had been excited to vote for the first time in the French presidential election and had been glued to it on social media, but her candidate, the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, had missed the final by just over one percentage point. “I’m gutted,” she said.
She is now one of the millions of Mélenchon-fan kingmakers whose second-round vote could decide the election as Emmanuel Macron tries to win them over in order to hold back the far-right Marine Le Pen. “Not a single vote for Le Pen!” Mélenchon thundered to his supporters after polls showed up to one-third of them might be tempted to give an “anti-system” vote to Le Pen because they despised Macron.
