This time it’s no. Claire *, a school teacher in the Paris region is categorical: there is no question of voting for outgoing President Emmanuel Macron in the second round. “Nor for Marine Le Pen, she adds. It’s as if I were asked to choose between the plague and cholera! The only possible options, for me, are the blank vote or abstention”. In the first round, the young woman had given her voice to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate of La France Insoumise, who came in third position on the evening of April 10. “Not really out of conviction but according to the principle of the” useful “vote. The idea was precisely to avoid the inextricable situation in which we are plunged today”, continues Claire. And don’t talk to him about a republican front intended to block the National Rally. “That’s what I did five years ago by choosing to put the Emmanuel Macron bulletin in the ballot box. Result, five years of suffering and a profession at the end of its rope”.
On Twitter or Facebook, the young woman is far from the only teacher to hold this discourse. A position that is unexpected to say the least on the part of a profession historically refractory to far-right ideas and combative towards it. “We must be wary of social networks on which only part of the profession expresses itself because they can act as a distorting mirror, warns Benoît Teste, secretary general of the FSU. While acknowledging that we also hear a lot of echoes of teachers’ rooms going in this direction. “Many colleagues are extremely upset against the policy pursued by the outgoing president and his minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, he explains. To the point, sometimes, of dismissing the two finalist candidates back to back, and of estimating that their programs are equal … It has a slightly frightening side”. The phenomenon, if it exists, remains difficult to measure. also to know if it is an epidermal reaction destined to evolve between now and the second round, or if it is a well-established and irrevocable decision.
Which option will the teachers finally choose on April 24? To sketch their forecasts, analysts base themselves on polls conducted before the first round of the presidential election. According to a survey by the Sciences Po Political Research Center (Cevipof) on voting intentions carried out at the end of March 2022, 24% of teachers then leaned towards Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The fact that the latter is content to instruct his voters to “not give a single vote to Marine le Pen” without calling for a vote for the opposing candidate may influence some. “There is a funny paradox there: in the home stretch of the campaign, we felt the idea of this “useful vote” rising, precisely to block the National Rally. And the same people would say today that they will not vote in the second round? It does not seem very coherent to me, “says teacher-researcher Laurent Frajerman, specialist in educational policies at the Center for Research on Social Ties. “I think that the majority of those who say they are hesitant will eventually go to the polls, aware that this is a democratic imperative,” he continues.
“Adherence or rejection, the policy led by Macron divides”
If Jean-Luc Mélenchon has been able to attract a good part of the teaching electorate, the idea that this environment would lean very largely to the left is less and less true. “Certainly, this tropism of the left remains quite strong in them, it is even quite clear when we compare their votes to those of all the other civil servants”, explains political scientist Luc Rouban, member of Cevipof. But the specialist insists on the fact that the educational environment is far from being homogeneous: “School teachers are generally more left-wing than secondary school teachers who, themselves, are more left-wing than university teachers”. According to him, the champion of the profession as a whole could actually be… Emmanuel Macron. Voting intentions in his favor amount to around 26%. “This one therefore also benefits from a membership vote”, insists Luc Rouban. Contrary to what certain trade union speeches might imply “not all teachers reject the idea of greater professional autonomy and variability of remuneration according to individual investment in work”.
For others, the policy led by Emmanuel Macron has generated, on the contrary, a very strong push-back effect. “According to a Harris Interactive poll that we made public last week, 95% of the 25,000 primary school teachers surveyed no longer trust the Ministry of National Education. The break is total”, asserts Guislaine David, co-secretary general of the SNUipp-FSU. “Our position is not simple because, if we have always fought against the far right, what is announced by Emmanuel Macron on salaries, pensions and education in general is highly contested by teachers”. Several recent outings of the candidate LREM have largely displeased and increased the anger of part of the corporation. The tone of his speech announcing his program had been considered too “liberal”, even “brutal” or “brittle” by some. “Thereafter, he tried to rectify by playing appeasement. But would it be better for him not to accumulate provocations in the days to come,” said Laurent Frajerman.
Very low support for far-right ideas
The teacher-researcher, who has studied Marine Le Pen’s education program, points out that, if we put the democratic issue – nevertheless central – aside, the latter’s promises can be perceived by some as “less openly anti-profs” and “more social” than those of Emmanuel Macron. “The RN candidate advocates the return to school of Jules Ferry, insists a lot on authority and discipline, proposes to upgrade the baccalaureate, to maintain the Capes and the aggregation, to increase salaries taking into account the merit, but without betting on a stronger hierarchy. At first sight, less irritating ideas for certain teachers”, explains Laurent Frajerman”. Even if, make no mistake about it, the obsession with identity is there, hidden at the bend of a sentence or an allusion”, he specifies.
Could teachers be tempted to vote more massively than in 2017 for the National Rally? Most analysts don’t believe it. “I would say that only 1 to 2% of teachers lean structurally towards the extreme right. Perhaps a little more if we take into account the hidden votes which are very difficult to estimate. This very weak support for the ideas of the National Rally is the one of the singularities of this environment”, explains Laurent Frajerman. “The voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round, tempted by Marine Le Pen in the second round, will rather come from more modest and less educated social categories, adds Luc Rouban. Before adding: “I think that teachers who do not will not choose Macron will rather opt for abstention and the blank vote.”
At the risk of benefiting, indirectly, Marine Le Pen. Do the teachers’ unions openly call for a republican barrage? The instructions differ according to the organizations. The SE-Unsa is very clear. “The extreme right cannot be tried. Marine Le Pen will not bring any solution to the challenges that are before us. For us, she must be beaten at the ballot box on April 24”, declares its secretary general Stéphane Crochet. In a press release, the Sgen-CFDT also asks “all those who are attached to democracy and the values of the Republic – freedom, equality, fraternity – to mobilize on Sunday April 24 to beat the candidate of the national rally in voting for Emmanuel Macron”. Snalc, for its part, will not comment. “Our organization is independent of any orientation or political party, it is inscribed in our statutes”, explains its president Jean-Rémi Girard. The FSU, the first education union federation, should speak on Wednesday evening April 13. “Let us have time for consultation”, explains Benoit Teste, its secretary general. Aware that each word will have to be carefully weighed.
*Name has been changed