One month ago, Emmanuel Macron seemed certain to be the first French president to win a second term in 20 years. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, opinion polls soared. He took a 12-point lead in a possible second-round match against far-right candidate Marin Le Pen and a 15-point lead over all other candidates in the first round. But with the first round taking place on Sunday, Macron’s lead has almost evaporated. In the most recent polls, she has only two to five points ahead of Le Pen in the first round and two to eight points ahead of her in the second round of the two candidates on April 24. Most French political analysts believe that Macron will continue to prevail. Lepen has magically escaped, so far, any account of her many years as a supporter of Vladimir Putin. In the second round of the French elections, the presidential credentials of the candidates are put to a more extreme test than in the first round with many candidates. Le Pen’s financial plan is an incoherent mess. Its European policy is Frexit by stealth – unilaterally reducing payments to the EU budget and violating EU laws it does not like. It also wants to ban all Muslim women from wearing the veil in public – not just the burqa, which was illegal in 2010. It intends to discriminate against foreigners, including EU nationals, in terms of eligibility for benefits. France is an angry country. It is always an angry country. He is particularly angry at the moment because the war in Ukraine has already inflated the high prices of gasoline, diesel and food. But there is no real appetite in France for conflicting policies that would destroy an 80-year-old post-war political consensus of extroverted tolerance and European unity. So Lepen can not win. Can she? Probably not. And yet opinion polls suggest that if enough left-wing voters stay home in the second round, refusing to choose between Macron (“the president of the rich”) and a seemingly “kinder, nobler” Le Pen, then he could win. Just. Having covered all the French presidential elections since 1986 and the elections in five other countries, I can not think of any parallel for such a belated collapse in the position of the supposed favorite. What the hell has happened? Macron’s support, in fact, has not collapsed. It is now an average of 27% – three points higher than it was most of last year. When the war broke out in Ukraine, it briefly rose to 31% as people from the milder left and the softer right rallied towards the flag and the centrist president. Similarly, there has been no dramatic increase in support for the far right. Le Pen’s supremacist opponent, Eric Zemour, has been ravaged by his own years of Putin’s retirement. Le Pen’s meteoric rise in first-round polls reflects Zemour’s fall from the invasion of Ukraine. In mid-February, both were at around 16%. It is now at 22-24%, with Zemmour falling to 8-10%. It’s one of the big oddities of the campaign that Zemour paid dearly for his paganism against Putin, but Lepen – an even more enthusiastic Muscovite – does not have it. Zemour’s extremism about race and Islam allowed Lepen to present herself as a dominant politician close to the common people. She identified early on the opportunities offered by low wages and high prices. Since the invasion of Ukraine, he has reaped electoral benefits by linking Russian sanctions – which he deplores – to the cost of living. The change in second-round polls is also not as dramatic as it seems – but potentially more significant. Macron’s average lead over Le Pen over the last six months was 12 points, 56% -44%. Several polls now put them at a distance of two to four points. Politico’s Poll of Polls, which was a very accurate guide in 2017, gives Macron a six-point lead of 53% -47% (but down). There are two main reasons why the predicted score is much closer than when Macron beat Lepen 66% -34%. First, many more leftists say they will stay home this time. Second, Macron is no longer a newcomer, a revolutionary with clothes. is the existing one. It is an iron rule in French politics that incumbent presidents are abhorrent. The second round of the 2017 elections was a referendum against the far right. this could be a referendum against Macron. Is Macron worth being so disgusted with? No, he does not. He has made many mistakes. Sometimes he has seemed arrogant or distant. He failed to create a compelling narrative of success, during his tenure and during a campaign he entered slowly, detached from the Ukraine war. When he finally launched his campaign, he took what now looks like an electorally brave (or foolish) decision to propose raising the standard retirement age in France from 62 to 65. And yet Macron has a lot to brag about. It reduced unemployment in France to 7.4%, the lowest in 13 years. France handled Covid better than many other comparable countries, thanks to huge government support for individuals and companies. His ideas and energy revived the European Union as a thinking force in world politics, not as a stationary, introverted bloc. He can still win the election. But it will be a frightening two weeks for anyone interested in the prosperity of France or Europe.
