"We can't hesitate for a second. If it's Macron against Mélenchon, we'll vote Mélenchon," the candidate told the press before his meeting in Bordeaux, the penultimate before Sunday's ballot.

"It's still unlikely, that's why we're not going to bend under Mélenchon's pressure on the useful vote, it's always his argument. We don't say that we are the useful vote, we says that we are useful for something, for those who think that the capitalist system must be overthrown”, he continued, projecting himself into the post-presidential period.

While acknowledging similarities with his competitor Mélenchon "which steals his voice", like his "radicalism", he also insisted on their differences: "He is very integrated into the system".

And in the event of a Macron/Le Pen duel?

"We will not choose, after that we are not in a story of instructions (...) but we understand that in the second round people want to vote against Le Pen", he underlined.

In a packed house of around 300 people, the ex-Ford worker, candidate for 60 years for the 3rd time, was greeted with the rallying cries of "yellow vests", "we are here...".

In jeans-shirt, hand in pocket, he held for an hour his speech of "struggles" against all forms of "violence", "violence on the part of the ultra-rich", "violence of precariousness", " violence of an increasingly authoritarian and liberticidal power", before a festive rock aperitif-concert.

Credited with 1 or 1.5% of voting intentions in the first round, neck and neck with his Lutte Ouvrière rival Nathalie Arthaud, the Bordeaux candidate called on left-wing activists and forces such as LFI and LO to "remobilize" in after the presidential election, in the form of a "unitary anti-fascist struggle" in the face of "an immediate danger from fascism".

"We saw it with Zemmour - Le Pen, even if they don't want to look alike, in reality it's the same!", He launched in front of his supporters.

Among them, Yohan Dupuis, 30, will put a Mélenchon ballot on Sunday, "for the useful vote".

"I don't want to have Le Pen/Macron again in the second round (...) I prefer to have Mélenchon in power, even if it means going to the streets with the NPA to demonstrate against certain reforms," ​​he said. -he explains.

© 2022 AFP