Le Pen, who has already backed the prospect of a “national unity government”, said on Thursday that while she “probably would not work” with hard-line left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melanson, she could work with leftists like those who follow him. Jean-Pierre Chevènement, former Minister of the Interior under Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. “I could very well have people, for example, from the left of Chevenement, in other words a dominant left, a left that supports industrialization, the defense of our big industries,” he told RTL radio. Chevènement himself, who once criticized Emmanuel Macron as a neoliberal, has thrown his weight behind the French president in the election campaign. However, some politicians on the left share Le Pen’s nationalism, her skepticism about NATO and the EU, and her belief in a strong state. About a quarter of Melanson’s supporters tell pollsters they will vote for Le Pen and not Macron if he makes it to the second round and the candidate does not. “There are a lot of people on the left who are attached to French secularism – which fits in very well, it is a fundamental issue for me – who are attached to education and are very opposed to the way Emanuel Macron plans to destroy the school.” said Lepen. “There are a lot of people connected with the public administration when Emanuel Macron is in the process of sinking the state,” he added. “These people could just as well be part of my government.” Le Pen, who used to focus on trying to curb immigration to France but recently focused on rising living costs after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was enjoying a boom in opinion polls in the weeks leading up to the election. For the first round of voting on Sunday, opinion polls show Macron leading with about 27 per cent of the vote, followed by Le Pen with 22 per cent and Melanson with 16 per cent.

Only the top two candidates will advance to the second round two weeks later. In that competition. Macron’s lead over Le Pen has plummeted, raising investors’ concerns about the growing risks of a French far-right presidency, a populist quake similar to Brexit in the UK or Donald Trump winning the 2016 US election. Macron also said he wanted to unite France behind common goals if he won the vote, pledging to reform the country’s healthcare, education and expensive and sophisticated pension systems. He has emerged as a credible politician in a time of war and the “great turmoil” of geopolitics, the environment and the inequalities of capitalism, and has criticized Le Pen and some of his other opponents for their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. stressing the importance of the EU for France. “I had a crisis experience, an international experience,” he told Le Figaro in an interview on Thursday. “I have also learned from my own mistakes. “I have been forged by crises.”