The latest polls point to a tight victory for Macron
Marine Le Pen, candidate of the extreme right for the French presidential elections, seems to resist well the electoral onslaught of the far-right Éric Zemmour, closes the gap with the outgoing president Emmanuel Macron and dreams of conquering the Elysee Palace on April 24.
“Marine Le Pen is going to win these presidential elections,” Jordan Bardella, interim president of Regrouping National, a former National Front, is convinced. “I’m ready,” says the far-right, who believes that “there is no glass ceiling” that would prevent her from winning the elections. “If the French vote, they will have another president than Emmanuel Macron and I wish it was me,” added the candidate.
If the first round of the presidential elections were held in France this Sunday, Macron would obtain 28% of the vote, followed by Le Pen with 21% of the vote, according to the latest polls. Both would qualify for the second round, being the two most voted candidates.
If Macron and Le Pen face off at the polls on April 24, as all the polls predict, the outgoing president would get 52.5% of the vote and the far-right 47.5%, according to the Elabe poll for the BFMTV network. and the magazine L’Express. Le Pen could benefit in the second round not only from a reserve of votes from Zemmour voters in the first round, but also from the anti-Macron vote, according to analysts.
Zemmour deflates
This fall, Zemmour, who before entering politics was a well-known journalist and television talk show host, turned the election campaign upside down by announcing his candidacy. He skyrocketed in the polls and threatened to remove Le Pen from the leadership of the extreme right. However, in recent weeks Zemmour has run out of steam, weighed down by his pro-Vladimir Putin speech and his proclamations against immigrants and Muslims. He is now fourth in the voting intention polls. The Reconquista party candidate assures that the polls “are not reliable” and believes that there is “a hidden vote” that will come to light on election day.
The big rally that Zemmour held on March 27 in the Trocadero square in Paris and the signing for his campaign of Marion Maréchal, niece of Marine Le Pen, have not helped him to come back in the polls. Zemmour, with a more erudite speech than his rival, is unable to connect, as Le Pen does, with the most popular classes.
Macron presents himself, as he did in 2017, as the candidate who defends the values of the Republic against the “tandem” of the extreme right, formed by Le Pen and Zemmour.
The outgoing president deliberately used the name National Front to refer to Marine Le Pen’s party. Macron wants to show the French that National Regrouping is still a far-right party, despite the image washing that Marine Le Pen has done in recent years.
“The election of Marine Le Pen would be a catastrophe for the country,” French Prime Minister Jean Castex warned today. “She makes believe that she has changed. Make believe that she is more flexible, almost more centrist. It’s a farce, she hasn’t changed. Her program has changed, because the idea is to attract more people, but deep down, the values that we know of National Regrouping and of the Le Pen family are the same », insisted Castex.
Third try
Le Pen is running for the third time as a candidate for presidential elections. In 2012 she was eliminated in the first round. In 2017, she managed to qualify for the second round. Macron defeated her at the polls with 66.1% of the vote, compared to 33.9% of the vote for the far-right leader.
Now the polls predict a tighter victory for Macron than in 2017 and she dreams of giving the surprise and winning the elections. “I am proud of my surname, Le Pen, a symbol of courage and perseverance,” the National Regrouping candidate recently said.
His father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, historical leader of the extreme right and founder of the National Front, ran five times for the presidential elections. Le Pen senior managed to qualify in 2002 for the second round, which was a real electoral earthquake in France. In the end, he only obtained 17.79%, compared to 82.21% for Jacques Chirac. The conservative politician, who was running for re-election, then benefited from the cordon sanitaire established by the rest of the parties to prevent the extreme right from coming to power.
Since assuming the leadership of the extreme right eleven years ago, Marine Le Pen has tried to “demonize” her party. To do this, she kicked out her father and the most radical members of the formation and softened her speech. She now she even claims the figure of former president Charles De Gaulle, who her father and the National Front reviled.
Her goal: to make Regrouping National more presentable to French public opinion, transform it into a ruling party, and establish herself as a credible alternative to Macron. The polls will have the last word on April 24.
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