Macron increases poll lead over Le Pen

Polls show that fear of a Marine Le Pen win outweighs disapproval of Emmanuel Macron and his record in France’s presidential race, with the two candidates trading their last punches before Sunday’s runoff.

Both candidates made their last arguments for undecided voters only hours before a media blackout was scheduled for midnight, with Le Pen claiming that Macron’s polling advantage will be proven false.

When asked in her northern stronghold of Étaples about the incumbent president’s “condescension and arrogance,” the Rassemblement National (National Rally) leader insisted that polls were not the deciding factor in an election.

“I urge on people to establish their own judgement, read what I truly offer,” she added, adding that Macron “names millions of French voters ‘far right’; for him, it’s an insult. In fact, I’ve never said anything negative about his supporters.” Even further, she said that Macron “does not like the French” in a radio interview.

France’s Sunday vote is “essential,” Le Pen said, criticising her centrist rival’s controversial proposal to raise the retirement age to 65 as “a life sentence.” People in France control it. Macron, France, or both.”

Le Pen’s plan to restrict the hijab in public has been criticised by Macron of dividing France and stigmatising Muslims. In order to fuel animosity, “the extreme right uses fear and rage,” he stated. “It claims that removing certain people from society is the solution.”

Le Pen’s idea to offer French citizens preferential treatment in employment and benefits “abandons the foundation documents of Europe that safeguard people, human rights and liberties,” President Hollande said on French radio. A large number of public sector employment and social benefits would be closed to non- or dual nationals under her plan, which would also eliminate automatic citizenship rights for children of non- or dual nationals born in France while simultaneously making the process of naturalisation more difficult.
Le Pen, he said, “gives the idea that she has a solution, but her answers aren’t feasible” – even if he recognised that she had “managed to draw on some of the things I did not manage to accomplish to assuage some of people’s wrath” in her campaign’s emphasis on the cost of living problem.

Despite government assistance during the epidemic, price restrictions on growing gasoline costs, and statistics demonstrating that all save the poorest 5% of French families are better off than they were five years ago, the cost of living has emerged as the election’s primary campaign topic.

“It’s a serious problem that promotes real resentment,” Macron said of the absence of investment in rural areas, particularly in health care, during his last campaign stop in Figeac in the rural southwest.

Polls published on Thursday and Friday after Wednesday’s fractious live TV debate showed Macron’s score stable or rising at between 55.5% and 57.5% and Le Pen’s between 42.5% and 44.5% – a lead for the incumbent of between 10 and 14 points, but a far closer race than the 66%-34% score when the same two contestants met in the previous 2017 election.

In part, the reduction in the difference is due to the achievement of Le Pen’s long-term effort to sterilise her party and normalise its views, which she railed angrily about on Friday.

Macron’s public image as an aloof, arrogant, and high-handed leader who is out of touch with the problems of the average person is also reflected in the statistics. Despite his commitment in 2017 to be “neither left nor right,” many lefties believe he has swung firmly to the right in government.

The lowest turnout in a presidential runoff election since 1969 is expected, according to polls. 74.56 percent of the population participated in the second round of voting in 2017. Abstention rates are already exaggerated by the many French voters who feel orphaned by the two-round contest and no longer represented by the two candidates. Easter vacations are also underway throughout most of France.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s supporters who voted for him in the first round on April 10 now say they’re inclined to either stay away or waste their votes. Both candidates want to win them over.

Once the polls shut on Sunday night and early results start trickling in, neither candidate will be able to conduct interviews, distribute fliers, or organise campaign events after midnight.

Voting will begin at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday and end at 8:00 p.m. in major cities around France. The overseas territories of France will begin voting on Saturday.

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