Polls predict Macron vs Le Pen fight as French presidential race draws to a close

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - With the first round of voting for the crucial French presidential election getting underway on Sunday, multiple polls have predicted that President Emmanuel Macron is likely to retain his seat at the Elysee Palace, but they also make clear the dreaded reality that far-right challenger Marine Le Pen will garner a record number of votes to lead France’s march further to the right.

No matter who claims victory, the forthcoming election will have a clear winner on the extreme right, recent surveys by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP), the IPSOS-Jean Jaures Foundation, Le Monde, L’Obs-Mascaret and Harris Interactive show. They point to a consistent surge in the voting intentions towards National Rally’s Le Pen which has progressed her as the second lead to Macron in the first round and a clash in the final round on April 24.

The L’Obs-Mascaret survey, released Thursday, notes a sharp rise in Le Pen’s voting share with 24% (1st round) and 45% (2nd round) even though Macron is in the lead with 28% of voting intentions and would win with 55% of the vote.

“But the trend is very favorable to Le Pen, which has risen by 3 points since last month and is now 11 points above its level in the second round in 2017,” the survey report states.

The rise is particularly because Macron has “bristled a majority of French people” with his policies on COVID-19, retirement pensions, inflation and the economy and many voters want to prevent his re-election, the report says.

According to a poll by OpinionWay and Kea Partners for the Les Echos daily and Radio Classique also published Thursday, Macron (53%) would win against Le Pen (47%) in the second round.

The poll, conducted from April 4-7 with a sample of 2,043 people, shows the voting intentions for the first round for Macron are down to 26% as against 28% a week ago, while Le Pen has gained 22% as against 20% last week.

Left-wing candidate of La France Insoumise party Jean-Luc Melenchon has also increased his share from 17% this week as against 15% last week.

“Marine Le Pen is the candidate who scored the most points over the past week, according to 30% of the French,” the report by OpinionWay and Kea Partners notes.

- French concerns high on economy, purchasing power

In the closing weeks of the election campaign, Le Pen has been making the right noises on inflation, which has skyrocketed with soaring fuel, gas and food prices. She has promised to abolish the value-added tax (VAT) on 100 basic necessities if she is elected to ease the economic burden of the common public.

“This inflation is not the consequence of the war in Ukraine. It is the result of bad economic policy,” she told BFMTV on April 4 while attacking the Macron government.

Purchasing power has emerged as the single biggest concern of French voters in this election ahead of the Ukraine war and the COVID-19 pandemic. A study by OpinionWay for Bonial released this week said 48% of French people are worried about their purchasing power, 36% cannot make ends meet and 37% say they cannot live decently, according to a BFMTV news report.

But Le Pen’s rising popularity is not new. The first poll conducted through a IPSOS-Sopra Steria survey with the Sciences Po Political Research Center (Cevipof) in April 2021 also showed Le Pen in the lead with a 26% voting share, followed by Macron with 25% and Melenchon with 8%. The survey includes a sample of 16,000 French people who will be interviewed 12 times over a period of 15 months.

While this electoral campaign is dominated by the Ukraine war and its consequences on security, energy and defense issues, purchasing power and inflation have emerged as the main issues that will determine the choice of vote of the French people in the first round.

The latest findings of the IPSOS-Sopra survey show Le Pen has the highest voting share at 69%, Macron at 52% and 63% for Melenchon and Fabien Roussel, the candidate of the French Communist Party, on the issue of purchasing power.

The health system, environment, immigration, pensions and the Ukraine war are the other issues that are keeping them awake, they said. Terrorism and the COVID-19 pandemic, which were the major worrying issues a few years ago, are low on the priority list.

- Trust in Macron on Ukraine war

Voters' share in matters of immigration is highest for Le Pen’s (54%) right-wing rival candidate Erick Zemmour with 73% and only 11% said they would vote for Macron. The voting share was in reverse on the issue of the Ukraine war, with 40% saying they trust Macron to handle the geopolitical crisis with Russia, 17% for Le Pen and 12% for Zemmour.

When the IPSOS-Sopra survey was conducted in March, days after Russia launched the war, this was the single most essential issue in the presidential campaign. It soared Macron’s share in the voting intentions with 30.5% in the first round, far ahead of Le Pen (14.5%). The leader of the National Rally party has proposed a security alliance with Russia in her election manifesto, restrained from holding President Vladimir Putin accountable for war crimes in Ukraine and is not keen on imposing sanctions on Moscow for oil and gas.

In the last survey released on April 5, Macron had a 26.5% share of voting intentions, followed by Le Pen with 21.5%, Melenchon with 16% and Zemmour with 10%.

- Win for Le Pen?

Many right-wing voters believe the time has come for Le Pen, who is contesting elections for the third time. She herself has proclaimed that France is ready for the first female president at the Elysee. Nearly one out of five French people believe that she will win the presidential election, said a Harris Interactive report released on April 4, noting the “renewed optimism concerning Le Pen.” In contrast, six out of 10 French people (56%) believe that Macron will be re-elected for a second term.

The report also found that more than four out of 10 French people find Le Pen credible (47%) over Macron (42%) to guarantee purchasing power.

The report concludes that in the last week before the elections, Macron’s share of credibility has eroded drastically, with voters not trusting him either on foreign policy, European policy, management of the health crisis, pension reform, economic policy, or youth policy.

During his five-year term, Macron has faced immense public backlash with widespread protests over the economy and taxes by the Yellow Vests group in 2017, by the opponents of COVID-19 vaccines and health restrictions in 2021, trade and workers unions, NGOs, civic activists and environmentalists for unfavorable policies.

A poll by Sao-Paulo based Atlas Intelligence, released Thursday, with a sample size of 1,946 respondents conducted between April 4 and 6, concludes voters favoring Le Pen to win with a tight margin (50.5%) over Macron (49.5%) if the two clash in the second round. In the first round, she is lagging behind with 21.3% over Macron’s 27.8% lead.

During the regional elections last year which were deemed to be a precursor to the 2022 presidential elections and a close contest between Macron’s La Republique En Marche! party and Le Pen’s National Rally party, poll pundits had indicated a glowing win for the latter. However, neither party won even a single seat.

The opinion polls are a mere indication of the mood of voters and may not translate into actual votes. There is still a high uncertainty, and factors of abstention and indecisive voters will be the key determinants of which way the French vote will sway.

Records of past polling during presidential elections signal that the French might punish Macron in the first round with the classic “protest vote” to show their disappointment and vote in favor of the far-right party. But if Le Pen surges in the second round, there is a big possibility of centrist, left-wing and even undecided voters coming out en masse to prevent her actual victory. If not, then France will be gearing up for a new right-wing political chapter.