The French will vote for Macron out of duty – not a sense of hope – this weekend

As France prepares to vote for its new president this weekend, there is a widespread view that the telegenic young favourite, Emmanuel Macron, is a Gallic Tony Blair, destined to be swept to the highest office on a wave of popular enthusiasm and hope for change. Seen from a Northern French town, trying hard to emerge from years of depression, such a view could hardly be further from the truth.

Macron may be young – at 39, victory would make him France’s youngest head of state since Napoleon – and he is undoubtedly telegenic, though in a rather bland, TV-presenter type way that projects almost as much naivety as strength. He can also be articulate, incisive and forthright. But any echoes of the popular excitement that attended Blair’s landslide victory exactly two decades ago must be limited to France’s more prosperous constituencies, if they are to be found at all.

There was certainly scant evidence of anything resembling enthusiasm, or even engagement, earlier this week in Roubaix; more a resigned acceptance of the inevitable, coupled with a dogged sense of duty that it was important to go out and vote.

It was the day after Macron had squared off against his second round opponent, Marine Le Pen – or Marine, as she presents herself for campaign purposes – in a riveting two-hour plus television debate, which demonstrated just how stark a choice France faces at this election. The pair – almost identically dressed in dark blue suits and white shirts – stared out from practically every front page on the news-stands, with the headline of the centre-right Figaro stating with particular trenchancy: “Macron-Le Pen: two Frances face to face”.

Yet this debate, that had indeed presented two utterly contrasting visions for France, with the two combatants contradicting each other so forcefully and directly that it was sometimes hard to hear what they were saying, seemed to have stirred little passion among those who watched it – and there were plenty who had not bothered – “I don’t watch television” – or who had chosen the football instead.

Of those who had watched, I could find no one who actually liked what they saw. “It was like an angry tennis game; you know, just bashing the ball to and fro, to and fro, and neither had any useful ideas.” “I didn’t like the way she was attacking all the time; she was just totally negative about anything he said.” This was from a woman waiting for a camera crew to interview her about her recycling project, “Zero rubbish”.

I overheard no one discussing the election on the metro or the buses I took. There was plenty about everyday concerns: care for a relative with dementia, a job interview, pressures from a college course that left no time to take up an offer of some freelance work, a hospital appointment... normal life.

But the idea that the future of France was not just at stake, but in the voters’ hands – the hands of voters like them – and that it would be decided within days, appeared not to have filtered much beyond those already politically aware.

Had they watched the debate, I asked two young-ish men enjoying a smoking break outside a restaurant at lunchtime. No, they said. What do you think of Macron? “Nothing at all, absolutely nothing,” said one. I turned to the other: “Agreed, but even less than nothing.” What about Marine Le Pen? I persisted. The second man said, No, obviously, I could never vote for her; simply unacceptable. You, too, I asked his friend. “I’m a bit more positive,” he said. “Why?” I asked, and he gestured all around him. “You see. It’s obvious all around.”

Two things were obvious about Roubaix – a sense that it could be better cared for and that it’s more ethnically diverse than many northern French towns – and it was not entirely clear which one he had in mind, perhaps both. To my eyes, though – I last visited more than 20 years ago – the place seemed to be doing a bit better.

Roubaix – which is twinned with Bradford – flourished from the textile industry that grew apace in the 19^th century. The decline of that industry – which now survives in little more than the bobbins incorporated into the municipal flag and a respected textiles training institute – has left Roubaix with all the familiar problems. Money has clearly been spent – since my last visit, the metro line from central Lille has been extended into and beyond Roubaix and the buildings around the handsome central square have been impressively renovated. Still, the decay is all too visible. Even in the very centre, shop fronts are empty, office buildings are for rent and decaying, and the “Zero rubbish” campaigner clearly has her work cut out.

Like the city of Lille, where Jacques Delors’ daughter, Martine Aubry, has been mayor for 16 years, Roubaix is staunchly of the left. In this presidential election, however, being of the left meant voting not for the official Socialist Party candidate, Benoit Hamon, but for the further-left insurgent, Jean-Luc Melanchon. He topped the poll in both Roubaix and Lille by a large margin.

But this has left the voters here with a dilemma. Melanchon did not make the run-off. The choice in the second round is between Marine Le Pen’s brand of slightly toned-down right-wing populism and En Marche!, the movement founded by Macron as the vehicle for his centrist, reformist insurgency. Which will they choose?

For most people I spoke to, it was no contest. A vote for Le Pen was out of the question. “I would have considered Fillon (the centre-right candidate, Francois Fillon, who was tarnished by a financial scandal), but not Le Pen. No way.” But there was scant enthusiasm for Macron either. “He’s not the left at all, or rather he’s the ‘rich left’, the ‘Paris left’, not our left.”

People referred to his past in banking, his time as a minister in the government of outgoing President Francois Hollande, who is also seen as having betrayed the true left, and what were seen as his expensive tastes and glitzy friends. I doubt that Le Pen’s last-minute allegations about his having an offshore account – claims he is suing to rebut – would inflict little damage; that sort of thing was factored into being of the “rich”, not the “real” left.

So would they vote for him? Again, no question. “You can stay away, or leave the paper blank – and some people may do that – but I feel that voting is an obligation, a civic obligation, that our parents and grandparents fought and died for” – Roubaix was under German occupation for periods during both world wars, and the shadow of those times still hangs heavy. Some forecast that the turn-out on Sunday could be lower than usual, and the number of blank ballot papers higher – a reason why Mayor Aubry issued an eleventh hour plea to voters to turn out to ensure Macron’s victory.

If the staunch left voters of Roubaix are anything to go by, however, it will be a question of holding their nose and doing their duty – a far cry from the excitement generated all those years ago by Tony Blair on the other side of the Channel. Rightly or wrongly, and for all Macron’s talk of change, world-weary French voters do not feel as though they are on the threshold of a revolution.

“The best that I can say,” said one woman, steeling herself to cast a reluctant vote for Macron, “is that it won’t matter, because it never matters. Whatever he says, there won’t be any change.” She may be right. Then again, Macron has surprised his compatriots many times over the past year. If he wins the presidency, his determination to change France for the better could surprise them all over again.