Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s election team has urged his supporters not to cast a single vote for the far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen in the final runoff in two weeks’ time. The hard-left firebrand, however, stopped short of joining the “anti-Le Pen bloc” and supporting a vote for the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron.Not a single vote should go to the FN [Front National],” Mélenchon’s spokesman Alexis Corbière told journalists on Wednesday. “Not one.”

He said the France Unbowed movement led by Mélenchon was consulting its 440,000 members on whether they supported abstaining, casting a blank vote, or voting for Macron in the second round runoff vote on 7 May.

“Clearly, there is no question of an FN vote … and we are not saying, neither one nor the other. Let me be clear, again, nothing will make us want one single vote to go to the FN.”

He said Les Insoumis, as Mélenchon supporters are called, did not need advice or a “moral lesson” on how to vote. Mélenchon is not expected to say how he intends to vote or to advise his supporters. The result of the consultation will be published next Tuesday.(guardian)…[+]