Emmanuel Macron consolidated his lead over Marin Le Pen as France’s presidential race enters its final week, according to opinion polls, suggesting tighter control of the far-right contender’s plans could change the race.
Six days after the runoff, which will decide who will occupy the Elysee Palace for the next five years, all 16 opinion polls conducted after the April 10 first round poll found the incumbent with between seven and 12 percentage points.
Both candidates chose a light agenda ahead of a televised debate on Wednesday that could prove critical to the campaign: in 2017, when they last emerged at this stage, Le Pen’s poor performance was widely seen as accelerating her defeat. in the second round.
Le Pen insisted on Monday that she was better prepared this time. “I hope this is a real confrontation of ideas, not a series of offensive, fake news and unnecessary things, as I heard last week,” she said during the Normandy election campaign.
Macron also expressed confidence, telling TF1 on Sunday night that he believed he had “a winning project that deserves to be known – and the feeling that there is a program on the far right that deserves to be clarified.”
The campaign of the leader of the Rassemblement National in the first round, focused on the cost of living, managed to sharply reduce the early gap between her and Macron, providing her with 23.1% of the vote against his 27.8%.
With long pressures to detoxify his party and soften his own image, finally bearing fruit, analysts say Le Pen was also defended by her far-right rival in the first round, fiercely xenophobic television expert Eric Zemmour, who distracted the media. .
But studies show that much tighter control of the second round of its economic, social, immigration, foreign and environmental policies – combined with renewed and sharper attacks by Macron’s team – may have slowed its momentum.
Some opinion polls just before the first round showed that Macron won the runoff against Le Pen with less than three points, within the margin of error. The president’s projected lead is now an average of eight or nine poll points, while the daily Ipsos tracker predicts a 56% to 44% victory.
The media highlighted Le Pen’s recent call for “strategic rapprochement” with Moscow after its war against Ukraine, its promise to remove existing wind turbines and ban new ones, and its proposal to ban Islamic headscarves in public.
Her team on Monday downplayed the headscarf proposal, saying it was “not her priority” in the fight against extremism, and also responded to the “suspicious” moment of accusations against her of embezzling Olaf by the EU’s anti-fraud service. .
Numerous analyzes have argued that one of the cornerstones of the far-right leader’s manifesto – a law on immigration, identity and citizenship that would establish a “national preference” for French citizens for work, welfare, housing and benefits – would violate the principle of equality. enshrined in the French constitution.
The law – which Le Pen said he seeks to pass in a referendum – will exclude non-citizens and dual nationals from many public sector jobs and restrict access to benefits.
It will also abolish automatic citizenship for children of non-citizens born in France and make naturalization much more difficult.
“Le Pen’s bill will be a radical break in France’s identity,” Dominique Rousseau, an honorary professor of constitutional law, said Monday, adding that he would also “violate European law, put France on the same path as Hungary or Poland.” and lead to progressive or indirect Frexit ”.
Economists are similarly scathing about the far-right leader’s “unrelated” economic plans, including lowering the retirement age to 60, which Jean Tyrol, France’s 2014 Nobel laureate in economics, warned this weekend would cost 68 billion euros (56 billion British pounds) more than expected and “permanently impoverish the country.”
Lawyers, NGOs and teachers also criticized Le Pen’s plans to:
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Give the police a “presumption of self-defense” and the right to file anonymous complaints.
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Radical increase in the number of sentences issued.
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Deny undocumented migrant health care.
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“Restore the neutrality” of an education system based on “traditional values”.
Analysts say the tougher spotlight in the second round has made it harder for Le Pen to maintain the friendly image he relies on to sell a platform that Le Monde described as “superficially soft – but fundamentally far-right”.
“The French are taking a closer look at her program and don’t seem to like what they see,” said Mujtaba Rahman, European director of Eurasia Group.
The growing clarity about what a possible Le Pen presidency might look like is unlikely to change the minds of many staunch Le Pen supporters, sociologists say, but could persuade hesitant enough voters – especially from the left – to vote for Macron. to keep the far-right candidate out.
As the election is likely to be won by a candidate who can reach beyond his camp to convince voters that the other option would be far worse, both candidates are seeking to attract some of the 7.7 million voters who backed Jean-Luc on the far left Melanchon in the first round.
Polls suggest that about 33% of radical left-wing voters – mostly moderates who backed Melanchon because he was the only left-wing candidate with a chance to reach the second round – will support Macron.
Meanwhile, several polls show that not all voters who support Zemmur will cast their ballots for Le Pen.
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