However, the fact that almost three in ten voters say they will not vote or have not made up their minds means that a surprise victory for Marine Le Pen similar to events like the Brexit and the choice of donald trump as president of the United States.
In recent days, Macron has softened his often abrasive style, acknowledging that his attempts at economic and social reform have left many French angry and dissatisfied.
“She (Le Pen) has managed to lean on some of the things we failed to do, some of the things I failed to do to defuse some of the anger,” he told France Inter radio on Friday, citing concerns from low- and middle-income voters about law and order or the impact on their livelihoods.
Four different polls published on Thursday and Friday, after a tense television debate, showed Macron holding steady or rising slightly to between 55.5% and 57.5%.
However, they also put the turnout rate at between 72% and 74%, which would be the lowest for a presidential runoff since 1969.
In the central city of Auxerre, some voters grudgingly rallied behind Macron.
“I will vote (for Macron) without any conviction, but Marine Le Pen’s France is inconceivable. I don’t want a France that is against diversity,” said Alice Dubois, 28, a Parisian journalist on vacation.
The bottom of the stack
In the television debate, Macron said that a Le Pen presidency would have disastrous consequences. He highlighted his past admiration for the Russian Vladimir Putin and maintained that she still wants to get France out of the European Union.
Marine Le Pen, whose policies include banning Muslim headscarves in public, prioritizing French citizens in jobs and benefits, and limiting European rules on cross-border travel, says Macron embodies an elitism that has failed. to ordinary people.
That was on full display this week on the streets of France’s old industrial north, a region that includes many strongholds of the far-right leader and where she has chosen to end her campaign.
“The working class, like us, is always at the bottom of the pile,” Marcel Bail, 65, a Le Pen voter, told Reuters at a motorway service station in the town of Roye, where she had lunch on Thursday. Thursday with truckers.
It was the same message Friday among supporters who turned out to see her in the seaside town of Etaples.
“I have 1,300 euros a month, after rent, heating and petrol it’s 400 euros,” said 52-year-old gardener Pascal Blondel. “Since Macron came in, we don’t have lunch. Everything costs more.”
Despite a more generous welfare system than most of the world, massive support for French households during the pandemic, and caps on fuel bills to offset rising energy prices, the cost of living emerged as the main campaign issue of the French elections.
Although the data shows that all but the poorest 5% of households are better off than they were five years ago, analysts say the fact that purchasing power has stagnated for a decade may have left an entrenched sense that people can’t get ahead.
This has been combined with Macron’s sometimes high-handed leadership style and the perception among many left-wing voters that he quickly switched to economically liberal policies shortly after being elected, alienating an entire section of the public.
“He doesn’t like the French,” Marine Le Pen told Europe 1 radio on Friday, accusing him of contempt for her and voters in Wednesday’s television debate and saying he lacked the straightforward common sense she had as a mother of three. .
Source: Ambito
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