The French are going to the polls today for the first round of the presidential elections. For a long time it seemed that President Emmanuel Macron would be re-elected without much trouble, but in recent weeks number two Marine Le Pen has begun a quick catch-up in the polls. So it will be an exciting first round, especially since almost a third of the voters indicated that they have not yet made the decision about who deserves their vote. At 5 p.m., 65 percent of eligible voters cast their vote. That is 4.4 percentage points less than in 2017 (69.42 percent), reports the French Ministry of the Interior.
Macron, the 44-year-old founder of the progressive-liberal movement La République En Marche, scored around 27 percent in the latest polls, the far-right Le Pen of the Rassemblement National (former National Front, founded by her father) around 24 percent. . La France Insoumise’s far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon rose to 18 percent in the polls and could potentially become the surprise second-round candidate. The other two candidates who still made sense in the polls, the far-right Eric Zemmour and the conservative Valérie Pécresse, fell below ten percent.
So it will be an exciting Sunday. Also because on Thursday, 32 percent of voters indicated that they did not yet know who they were going to vote for, according to FranceInfo. A Le Figaro poll also indicated that 27.4 percent of voters would not vote. That comes close to the record set in the first round of the election in 2002, when 28.4 percent of voters did not turn up.
Macron’s direct line with Putin
Macron recently kept the smaller gap in the polls in first place to follow himself, thanks to a rather mediocre opposition – the right and especially the left are hopelessly divided -, good economic news in recent weeks and falling corona infections. In addition, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plays into his hands. Not only are voters more inclined to a status quo in uncertain times, but the events have given Macron’s image a huge boost because the French president is one of the few world leaders with a more or less direct line to Vladimir Putin. It seems to matter less that his efforts to persuade Putin to reason are of little consequence: he presents himself as a mediator and a worthy European leader.
Inflation
However, Macron’s role on the international stage has also resulted in him really getting his election campaign underway much later than the other candidates. Many French people also think that he is no longer aware of the daily worries of the French in their own country. They are concerned, among other things, about inflation and rising energy prices, themes on which Le Pen has strongly focused. The latter was also able to take advantage of Eric Zemmour’s even more extreme statements about Islam and immigration, which made her own discourse more moderate.
For form: Twelve candidates apply for the post of ‘Président de la République’ but only a handful have a real chance of surviving the first round. In the second round, the two candidates with the best result from the first round will compete against each other.
Opponents of Macron also draw hope from the following statistic: the previous two presidents – Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande – have failed to secure a second term in office. The last to do so was Jacques Chirac.
In 2017, Macron won a second round against Marine Le Pen. He won 66.10 percent (20.7 million votes) against 33.90 percent for Le Pen.
The polls opened at 8 a.m. and will remain open until 8 p.m. in major cities. Until then, no exit polls or results may be published in France, but abroad it is allowed earlier.
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