THE French President Emanuel Macron will not be able to count on the traditional anti-far right front of French voters in the final second round and he will have to step up his campaign if he wants to defeat it Marin Lepenwhich has successfully softens its far right imagereports in its analysis of the elections in France the Reuters agency.
Although Macron seems to be winning a better than expected result in the first round of 28%, improving his result in 2017, Macron can not automatically count on victory: Polls predict a slight margin victory over Le Pen in the second round on Orthodox Easter.
In previous national, regional and municipal elections, left-wing and right-wing voters have historically united to thwart the far right in power, a phenomenon known as the “front of democracy”.
While all the main candidates, including those from the conservative Les Republicains and the Socialist Party, are backing Mr Macron in the run-off on Sunday night, it is unclear who their voters will follow. In addition, their low single-digit percentages were so depressing that their support may have little weight.
“Among politicians, the democratic front is taking action. “It remains to be seen whether voters will follow suit,” said Mathieu Gallard, chief of research at Ipsos in France.
An Ifop poll outside the polls on Sunday predicted that Mr Macron would win just 51% of the vote in two weeks, a clear indication that the “Republican front” was collapsing.
Complicating Mr Macron’s work, Ms. Le Pen has largely abandoned her most aggressive anti-immigration rhetoric against the European Union, focusing more on cost-of-living issues. Another Ifop poll in March found that less than half of French people now find it “scary”.
In her speech on Sunday, she presented herself as a unifying figure, who would heal the “fractures” of France and stop the “chaos” that Mr. Macron is supposed to bring. At least he did not talk about “plaster”…
Neither are the left-wing votes a given
Mr Macron, meanwhile, could not take left-wing voters for granted. A third candidate, Jean-Luc Melanson, urged voters not to support Le Pen, but did not support Macron, raising uncertainty about how more than 21% of far-right voters would vote. Polls show that many may decide to abstain.
“Macron πολιτική policy has strengthened the far right,” Leah Drier, a 27-year-old voter at Mr Melanson’s polling station, told Reuters. He voted for Mr Macron in 2017 and said he would abstain in the second round this month.
Other supporters of Mr Melanson were still uncertain. “I will see how the next two weeks go. “If the polls say 49-51, then I will vote for Macron,” said Guillaume Rafi, 36, a music producer from Montpellier.
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. to the rising cost of living and deep-rooted resentment towards a distant elite.
Mr Macron has acknowledged that he entered the campaign too late, focusing on dealing with the effects of the war in Ukraine.
“In the second round, Emanuel Macron will have to roll up his sleeves a little more than in the first,” former French ambassador to Washington Gerard Aro wrote on Twitter. And it seems that this will happen.
kathimerini
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