French election: Macron soars in the polls amid division on the right and implosion of the left
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Loading... - Claudia Monet
- 15 Mar 2022
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As Russian forces poured across Ukrainian borders on Feb. 24, French President Emmanuel Macron warned in a televised address that the incursion marked "a turning point in the history of Europe and of our country" and would have "profound, lasting consequences for our lives."
With the crisis unfolding less than 2,000 kilometres from Paris, France is entering the final weeks of a presidential election. Macron declared his candidacy on March 3, just over a month before the first-round ballot is set to take place April 10.
In the wake of the largest invasion on European soil in decades, party leaders on both the left and the right condemned the attack.
The war may have forced some candidates to rethink their past admiration of Putin, but the issues that will decide the election are closer to home: financial security, immigration, crime and public safety.
The rise of the right
Although the latest polls suggest the six left-wing candidates will divide the vote and all but hand centrist Macron a second term, it's the right that's a close second: Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour on the far-right and Valérie Pécresse, a cabinet minister in the Republican government of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, on the centre-right.
Pécresse, who calls herself "two-thirds Merkel and one-third Thatcher," grabbed the headlines in January when she vowed to clean the streets of crime with a Kärcher power hose — the exact analogy used by Sarkozy 17 years ago — in an attempt to look tougher than her rivals.
The latest polling numbers from Harris Interactive on March 9:
Emmanuel Macron: 30.5%
Marine Le Pen 18.5%
Éric Zemmour 12.5%
Jean-Luc Mélenchon: 12.5%
Valérie Pécresse: 10.5%
Whereas working class voters have flocked to Le Pen, higher-income conservatives are gravitating toward Zemmour's Reconquête, or Reconquest, party. His uncompromising opposition to immigration appeals to those let down by Le Pen's rebranding. The TV pundit has attracted a large following without closing in on Le Pen, showing there's plenty of room on the right.
"Since opinion polls have existed, we have not had two parties on the far-right ranked so high," said Adrien Broche, a political analyst at Viavoice Polling and Research Institute.
Left parties 'no longer speak to the people'
Both have capitalized on public concerns about the cost of living, crime and calls to protect the French identity.
Those issues enticed Lou, a 50-something photographer who would not share her last name, to swivel to the right.
"I'd always marched with the left," she said at a recent rally for Zemmour. "But I think those values have changed sides and are no longer held by the left. It's been said the left has gone off to the bistro, and no one has heard back from them.
"They no longer speak to the people." Read More...
