7% of them voted for Le Pen in the first round.. France's Muslims are faced with a difficult choice between "bad and worse"

"Choice between bad and worse" is the problem of French Muslims when they go to vote in the second round of presidential elections on April 24, in which President Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are competing.

Macron's first presidential term witnessed unprecedented restrictions on Muslims in France, especially after the issuance of a law to combat so-called "Islamic separatism" and an attempt to create "modern Islam" on the scale of "French secularism".

The French president sparked widespread anger among the Muslims of the world when he said that "Islam is experiencing a deep crisis in all countries of the world."

The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanan, who is affiliated with Macron, is proud of the closure of 200 Islamic associations - according to him - close to "political Islam movements", according to the website "Orientxxi", such as the Association for Combating Islamophobia, in addition to closing mosques, in addition to Macron's support for the publication of offensive photos. For the Prophet Muhammad - peace be upon him - and considering it freedom of opinion, while Paris did not tolerate the Russian embassy’s publication of a satirical drawing about Europe on its website, and the Russian ambassador was summoned about it, in a paradox that clearly reveals the double standards regarding freedom of expression.

Bids

Despite Macron's decisions to outbid the extreme right in his hostility to Muslims and immigrants, Le Pen raised the ceiling to extreme levels when she announced during her election campaign that she would ban the wearing of headscarves in public places and would impose fines on veiled women in the streets if she reached the presidency.

The leader of the "National Rally" party (formerly the National Front) considered that the veil "is a symbol of that totalitarian ideology (which means Islam), and for this I wish to rid all women of the veil."

On the sidelines of her election campaign, a veiled French woman of Algerian origin replied, "Leave the Muslims alone."

However, Le Pen insists on opening the files that feed the extreme right with the voices of the populists, such as preventing the slaughter of sacrifices in the Islamic way, and thus depriving Muslims of halal meat, but she proposes in return to import it from abroad.

Immigration and Asylum

Although Macron adopts a project in which he stresses restricting immigration and the right of asylum from outside the European Union - especially from Arab and Islamic countries - Le Pen exaggerates the call for restricting this right, while Macron proposes facilitating the process of deporting refugees whose applications have been rejected and reviewing the conditions for obtaining residence permits for more than 4 years Le Pen stresses the necessity of submitting these requests from the country or country of origin in French embassies abroad, before any immigration.

As for obtaining French citizenship, Macron proposes a requirement to master the French language, while his opponent calls for the abolition of the right to land and the automatic acquisition of citizenship through marriage.

It calls for the inclusion of the reasons leading to the revocation of French citizenship in the constitution, according to EuroNews.

Neither Macron nor Le Pen

According to the Ifop polling institute, the votes of Muslims in the first round of the presidential elections - which were held on April 10 - did not go to Macron or Le Pen, but the radical left-wing candidate and defender of immigrants Jean-Luc Melenchon won the lion's share by nearly 70%.

Macron received only 14% of the Muslim vote, while 7% voted for Le Pen.

Muslims represent - according to some estimates - 10% of the population of more than 67 million people, of whom 48.7 million are entitled to vote.

The participation rate in the first round of the presidential elections amounted to 73.69%, compared to 78% in the 2017 elections, which represents a decline of more than 5 points. It is expected that this percentage will decline in the second round, especially since the presidential battle appears to be a foregone conclusion for Macron, despite Le Pen's ability to reduce the gap between him and him.

Macron received 27.85% of the valid votes, compared to 23.15% for Le Pen, according to the official results of the Constitutional Council.

Melenchon - who won the confidence of more than two-thirds of Muslims in France - did not announce his support for Macron, but he called for depriving Le Pen of any vote for his supporters, which is in the interest of the outgoing president, especially since the candidate who came third with more than 7 million votes was not called for boycott the elections.

In the nearest opinion polls - published during the first round - Le Pen managed to reduce the gap between her and Macron to only 3 points (48.5% for Le Pen compared to 51.5% for Macron), and this is a very small and unprecedented difference.

Although Macron has the support of the majority of losing presidential candidates, the possibility of a surprise is not an impossible issue, especially if voters resort to a punitive vote against him, or if the proportion of boycotts was large among left and Muslim circles, in exchange for a massive mobilization of the far-right votes behind Le Pen.

The presidential battle has not been finally resolved, and Muslims can defeat Macron, because they represent about 10% of the electorate, while the difference is close to 3%, but the alternative would be the worst option, so the outgoing president does not seem very concerned about the Muslim vote, but he is afraid of a punitive vote .

savior image

In his election campaign, Macron did not make major concessions to Muslims, but he tried to appear as the savior of them from the "bogeyman" of the extreme right, and said in his election campaign, "I want France to allow everyone freedom of belief and worship in the shadow of secularism, and I do not want it to prevent Muslims and Jews from eating." (Halal meat) according to their beliefs, that is not one of our values.”

"I will prove to them (i.e. Muslims and Jews) in the coming days that our project will meet their requirements more than any project of the extreme right-wing," he added.

Macron also assured Muslim women that "the issue of the veil is not an obsession", in response to Le Pen's threats to ban the veil in public places.

Did Macron resort to Algeria?

In less than 48 hours from the visit of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to Algeria and his meeting with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the dean of the Grand Mosque of Paris - run by Algeria - called on Muslims to vote for Macron.

And Le Drian's sudden and unprogrammed visit, which was not preceded by a carrying agenda for several aspects, especially since the relations between the two countries were wracked by a severe crisis that caused Algeria to recall its ambassador from Paris, before returning him after the latter sought to calm down. Macron is well aware of the weight of the Algerian community in France, which appreciates About 5.5 million people, of whom about 1.2 million are entitled to vote.

This is evident in the angry French reaction to the statements of the Algerian ambassador, Antar Daoud, when he stated that "it is unacceptable that Algeria - which has the largest foreign community in France and 18 consulates - is not able to take the reins in order to interfere, not only in Algerian politics, but also On the level of French politics,” Macron himself visited Algeria during the 2017 presidential election campaign to get its support, and made his famous statement, “French colonization of Algeria is a crime against humanity.”

When the dean of the Grand Mosque of Paris calls on Muslims to vote for Macron, this is only at the behest of Algeria, and therefore it is not excluded that there will be Algerian understandings with Macron in an undisclosed manner to support him in the elections, without it being clear yet what the return will be.

But Le Drian did not mention the French elections after his meeting with President Tebboune, and only indicated that he discussed several files with him, most notably "fighting terrorism, security in the Mediterranean and the African coast, and supporting the political transition in Libya."

On this basis, it is expected that most of the votes of French Muslims will go to Macron, and not a small part will prefer to boycott the elections, while a small percentage will vote for Le Pen.