It’s Macron vs Le Pen – and polls show almost 50/50 chance she could win

Yesterday less than 28% of French people voted for their President

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2022

Will Macron have to ask “Donnez-moi un break” to retain his presidency?

Yesterday 35.4 million voters went to the polling booths to express their verdict on French President Emmanuel Macron and the 11 other candidates seeking tenure of the Elysée Palace.

In this first of two rounds Macron came out on top but the endorsement was hardly resounding. Only 27.6% of the French electorate wished to see him stay as President for the next four years.

In what could be a pivotal election for the EU and NATO, polls show that in the second round Mme Marine Le Pen is close to causing an upset that would send a shock-wave down the corridors of Brussels.

Latest polls show Marine Le Pen is closer than ever before

In the latest poll last night by the respected Ifop-Fiducial group, Marine Le Pen is predicted to win 49% to Macron’s 51%.

This is of course within the margin of error and it is worth pointing out that it is much closer than the predicted result in the UK’s EU Referendum, when the pollsters were confounded by the Leave victory on the day.

Mme Le Pen’s softer position has put her in with a real chance

For months Mme Le Pen of the ‘National Rally’ has been criss-crossing France, appealing to the disaffected and those who are deeply concerned at the cost of living crisis, soaring energy costs, and the difficulties surrounding immigration and France’s Islamic population.

President Macron, meanwhile, preferred to look presidential and only actually declared his candidacy at the last minute. Whilst he won the first round, this strategy has made him seem uncaring and out of touch in large segments of the population.

He now has just two weeks to put this right, or Mme Le Pen could cause an upset that would shake the EU to its core.

What would a Le Pen victory mean for the EU and NATO?

Whilst Mme Le Pen has cultivated a gradually softer position on the EU, there is no doubt where her proclivities lie. She no longer advocates Frexit, nor leaving the Euro, but she still wants France for the French. And she retains firm beliefs about immigration and Islamic militancy.

Under her presidency, the bureaucrats in Brussels would no longer have an integrationist, federalist leader but one whose instincts would be to block or challenge almost every move the EU Commission wanted to make.

There would also be implications for NATO, as Mme Le Pen is a believer in an independent France with a fiercely independent defence policy.

Finally, can you imagine Boris Johnson coming in 5th, below Nigel Farage?

In yesterday’s election, the leader of France’s nearest equivalent to the Conservative Party, Mme Valérie Pécresse, trailed in at a dismal fifth place. She was even beaten by the independent right-wing candidate Eric Zemmour. This gives some idea of the polorisation of the French political landscape over the past decade.

[ Sources: French Interior Ministry | Ifop-Fiducial group ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 11 Apr 2022

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