Two candidate lists containing the names of members of France’s Yellow Vest movement (the “Gilet Jaunes”), who have been demonstrating across the country for more than 6 months, won less than 0.6% in Sunday’s EU vote.
Even before Sunday’s vote began, however, polls had suggested a majority of supporters of the movement favoured the far-right National Rally party.
As European Union voters headed to the polls on May 26 to elect their new Parliament, in France observers were keeping a close watch on the votes of “Yellow vest” protestors in the first elections since the movement began in November.
Among the 34 lists of candidates, two were solely composed of Yellow Vest members. One list, the Yellow Alliance, headed by singer Francis Lalanne won 0.54% of the vote. The second, the Christophe Chalençon-led “Citizen Evolution”, won only 0.01%.
Apart from these lists, some parties had “Gilet Jaunes” members amongst their candidates. Other parties also claimed to be representing the movement, which every Saturday since November took to the streets of France with their biggest march culminating in 282,000 protestors.