With less than two weeks to go before France goes to the polls, incumbent Emmanuel Macron is finally cranking up his campaign, with walkabouts in the provinces and a huge rally scheduled in Paris on Saturday. But the most recent polls show the gap is narrowing between him and his nearest rival Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally.
Macron has long been favourite for the two-round election on 10 and 24 April and his handling of the diplomatic crisis caused by the war in Ukraine is seen as giving him a boost.
But two polls published this week suggest his estimated margin of victory over Le Pen is sharply narrowing as the election approaches.
If they faced each other in the runoff, a poll by the Ifop-Fiducial group for Paris Match published on Monday indicated Macron would win by just 53 percent versus 47 percent for Le Pen, who had gained three points in a week.
A poll on Tuesday by Ipsos Sopra-Steria, meanwhile, showed Macron winning by 56 percent to 44 percent, again with Le Pen up by around three points in a week.
While Macron's rivals on both right and left accuse him of neglecting domestic issues and ducking political debate in favour of international politics, Le Pen is campaigning hard on the issue of the cost of living.
Predictable drop
Aides to Macron sought to play down the change, with one advisor saying Tuesday that it was a simple correction after a sharp rise in support following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
"We knew he wasn't going to stay so high," the advisor told AFP on condition of anonymity.
But the shift in momentum is being seized on by Le Pen and her anti-immigration National Rally party, with between a quarter and a third of voters believed to be undecided about how to cast their ballots.
"I have never been so close to victory," Le Pen told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview published Saturday.
She has placed less emphasis on her traditional themes of Islam and immigration in favour of a grassroots campaign focused on the economic problems faced by low-income families and the working classes.
This is Le Pen's third attempt at becoming president of France and she says this will be her last.
Inflation fears
Macron has largely shunned the election campaign so far, but during his first public walkabout to meet voters on Monday in the eastern town of Dijon, there were plenty of complaints about inflation and rocketing fuel prices.
"Everything is going up... put yourself in the position of a French family. It can't carry on, people will go nuts," one 46-year-old salesman told him.
Macron has also been under fire over the government's use of costly outside consulting firms such as the US-based McKinsey following a highly critical report from the Senate this month.
The investigation found that the value of such contracts had more than doubled between 2018 and 2021, reaching a record of more than a billion euros last year.
- Why spending power holds the key to winning France’s presidential election
- French presidential campaign hots up two weeks from first round polls
Experts emphasise that pre-election polls are a snapshot of voting intentions at the time they are conducted, and that the outcome of the election next month remains uncertain.
Turnout could also be much lower than usual, which will add more uncertainty.
(with AFP)
