Paris, April 10 (BNA) France votes on Sunday in the first round of the presidential election, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen posing an unexpected threat to President Emmanuel Macron’s hopes of re-election.
Just weeks ago, opinion polls pointed to an easy win for the centrist pro-EU Macron, whose active diplomacy on Ukraine has been bolstered by a robust economic recovery and a weakened fragmented opposition, according to Reuters.
But his late entry into the campaign trail, with only one large crowd finding him frustrated by his supporters, and his focus on an unpopular plan to raise the retirement age, has dented the president’s ratings, along with a sharp rise in inflation.
In return, the anti-immigration far-right Le Pen confidently toured France, everyone smiled, and her supporters chanted “We will win! We will win!”. It has been bolstered by a months-long focus on the cost of living and a dramatic drop in support for its far-right rival, Eric Zemmour.
Sure, polls still see Macron leading the first round and winning the run-off against Le Pen on April 24, but many polls now say that falls within the margin of error.
Voting begins at 8 am (0600 GMT) and ends at 1800 GMT, when the first polls will be published at exit. Such surveys are usually very reliable in France.
“We are ready and the French are with us,” Le Pen told her supporters at a rally on Thursday, urging them to cast their votes to carry out “the just punishment that those who have judged us so badly deserve.”
Macron, 44, who has held office since 2017, spent the final days of the election campaign trying to make clear that Le Pen’s platform had not changed despite efforts to soften her image and that of the National Rally party.
“Its basics have not changed: it is a racist program that aims to divide society and it is very brutal,” he told Le Parisien newspaper.
Le Pen rejects allegations of racism and says her policies will benefit all French people, regardless of their origins.
The risks of running Macron
Assuming Macron and Le Pen go into the run-off, the president has a problem: Many left-wing voters told pollsters that, unlike in 2017, they would not vote for Macron in the run-off just to keep Le Pen out of the competition. Energy.
Macron will need to convince them to change their minds and vote for him in the second round.
Sunday’s vote will show who will choose the unusually large number of undecided voters, and whether Le Pen, 53, can beat poll expectations and take the lead in the first round.
“Marine Le Pen has never been so successful in the presidential election,” Jean-Daniel Levy, a pollster at Harris Interactive, said of Le Pen’s third round at the Elysee Palace.
Supporters of the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is in third place according to opinion polls, are hoping for another kind of surprise, calling on left-wing voters of all stripes to switch to their candidate and send him to the runoff.
Macron and Le Pen agree that the outcome is wide open.
“Anything is possible,” Le Pen told his supporters on Thursday, while Macron earlier in the week warned his followers not to rule out a Le Pen victory.
“Look at what happened with Brexit and many other elections: what seemed improbable actually happened,” he said.