As the second round approaches in France, President Emmanuel Macron opens up an increasingly advantage over his rival, Marine Le Pen. The re-election candidate also received the endorsement of three European leaders from the neighborhood, in a mobilization to demonstrate opposition to the ultra-rightist.
An Ipsos poll released this Thursday (21) showed that the difference between rivals’ voting intentions has already reached 15 points. A day after the only debate held between the candidates, the president reached 57.5%, against 42.5% for Le Pen. Three days before the French go to the polls, on Sunday (24), almost 90% of respondents say their choice is already defined.
Macron also appears ahead in the survey by the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop), albeit with a smaller advantage – this Thursday’s balance gives 55.5% for the current president and 44.5% for the ultra-rightist. The representative, however, has been gaining ground since the first round. On April 11, the day after the election, the score showed 52.5% for him, against 47.5% for Le Pen.
Also on Thursday, three European leaders formalized their support for the current president in an article published in the French newspaper Le Monde. The prime ministers of Portugal, António Costa, Spain, Pedro Sánchez, and Germany, Olaf Scholz, spoke saying that the election “is not an election like any other”.
After pointing out that the Ukrainian War initiated by Russian Vladimir Putin targets the values ​​that France and its countries defend (“democracy, sovereignty, freedom and the rule of law”), they claim that the far-right populists in their respective countries have made Russian “an ideological and political model”.
Macron, by the way, used Le Pen’s relations with the Kremlin chief to attack her in Wednesday’s debate, saying that the rival “depends on Putin’s power” because of a loan his party took out at a Russian bank in 2014. “We must not forget, even if these politicians today try to distance themselves from the Russian aggressor”, the European leaders wrote in the article – all three lived with the specter of the far right in the elections they won.
Costa, Sánchez and Scholz argue that France “is at the heart of the European project” and that Sunday’s choice will be between a “democratic candidate, who believes that France is stronger in a powerful and autonomous European Union, and a candidate of the extreme right, which is openly on the side of those who attack our freedom and our democracy”.
In the debate, Le Pen denied that he plans to take France out of the EU, as he has argued in the past.
“We need France on our side”, write politicians in Monde. “A France that defends our common values, in a Europe in which we recognize ourselves, that is free and open to the world, sovereign, strong and generous. It is this France that is also on the April 24 ballot. of the French Republic choose it.”
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who in the first round had expressed support for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was another to endorse Macron. In a series of tweets this Thursday, published in Portuguese and French, the PT says that “the future of democracy is at stake in Europe and in the world” and calls for union “around the candidate who best embodies democratic and humanist values”, tagging Macron’s profile on the net.
“It is essential to defeat the extreme right and its message of hatred and prejudice. This is what democrats of different hues want and hope for”, writes the Brazilian.
Macron’s mission now to secure his advantage is to convince the French to leave and go to the polls. According to the Ipsos survey, participation should be between 71% and 75% —voting is not mandatory in the country. If the prognosis is confirmed, the second round of 2022 could have the highest abstention recorded since 1969, the institute points out.
The dismay is reflected among voters of the ultra-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, third in the first round. Of their supporters in the first round polled by Ipsos, 48% say they would not choose either candidate; 34% would vote for Macron and 18% for Le Pen.
