campaign
Macron-Le Pen duel is emerging in France elections
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party, at a campaign event. Photo: Laurent Cipriani/AP/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
According to polls, right-wing politician Marine Le Pen is in second place in the election campaign for France’s highest office. However, it is questionable whether she can catch up with President Emmanuel Macron.
Two and a half weeks before the start of the presidential elections in France, the polls point to a duel between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and right-wing politician Marine Le Pen.
While Macron is seen with a clear lead, Le Pen has increased her gap to the other applicants. In third place, but clearly behind Le Pen, is left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon. This was shown by the new surveys for the business newspaper “Les Echo”, for the newspaper “Paris Match” and the fresh data from the research institute Harris Interactive.
President Macron, who is running for a second term, has 28 to 29.5 percent, Le Pen 19.5 to 20 percent and Mélenchon 14 percent. The candidate of the conservative Républicains, Valérie Pécresse, has so far not been able to raise herself to Macron’s challenger with values of 10 to 11 percent. The extreme right-wing publicist Éric Zemmour is losing support with values between 9 and 12 percent.
Green lagging behind
Unlike in Germany, the Greens do not play a major role, their candidate Yannick Jadot is 5 to 6 percent. A debacle is looming for the socialists who have been strong in France for a long time. After a weak start to the election campaign, your candidate, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, is now only between 2 and 3 percent.
As Harris Interactive asked, based on the poll numbers so far, Macron has a good chance of winning the runoff no matter who he goes to in the finals. If he competes against Le Pen, as he did in 2017, he is 57 percent ahead of 43 percent. His lead over the other candidates would be even clearer. The first ballot is on April 10th, with the runoff on April 24th.