- Daniela Fernandes
- From Paris to BBC News Brazil
7 hours ago
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Ipsos poll shows Macron holds 56% of voting intentions
French President Emmanuel Macron remains the favorite in the second round of the presidential elections this Sunday (24 April) against Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right.
Macron has gradually increased his lead, but it remains much smaller than in the 2017 election, which easily secured him victory.
If elected, the polls show the centrist should benefit more from voters’ sense of rejection of his rival, with votes destined to prevent the far right from coming to power than of a real allegiance to their ideas and its government program.
According to an Ipsos poll, conducted in collaboration with Sciences Po University’s Policy Research Center for Le Monde newspaper, and conducted among nearly 13,000 people, 39% of voters planning to vote for Macron on Sunday are motivated to support Le Pen 25% say the center’s ideas are closer to their own and 36% say they trust it.
In the case of Le Pen, 42% say they stick to the farright candidate’s ideas and 38% aim to prevent Macron’s reelection. The remaining 20% say they trust the Réunion National (former Front National) candidate.
The same poll shows 56% for Macron and 44% for Le Pen in the second round. Overall, Macron leads the latest polls with 53% to 57.5% of the vote versus 42.5% to 47% for Le Pen. In 2017, Macron beat Le Pen by 32 percentage points.
“Nothing is guaranteed,” declared the President on Thursday (April 21) to mobilize the electorate.
One of Macron’s challenges is to seduce the left electorate, particularly JeanLuc Mélenchon, leader of the radical left, who won almost 22% in the first round and who will play a crucial role in Sunday’s result. Mélenchon declared that “Le Pen should not be given a vote”, but made no appeal for Macron to be elected.
Macron’s advances in the polls over the past few days are thanks to the very segment of Mélenchon’s electorate who had previously contemplated abstaining or voting white or zero until then the majority in several polls and now intend to run for president to choose to prevent the eventual arrival of Le Remember the power.
Paradoxically, some Mélenchon voters, between 19 and 25 percent, are determined to vote for the farright candidate on Sunday.
A poll by Opinionway for Les Echos newspaper published on Friday (22/4) shows that more than half of Mélenchon voters (54%) now expect to vote for Macron, a seven percentage point increase compared to the poll corresponds to .. of the previous evening. At the same time, the total number of those who voted for Mélenchon and intend to vote for Le Pen fell from 27% to 23%. The remainder (23%) expect to abstain or vote blank or zero.
Macron is multiplying his statements aimed at the leftwing electorate, particularly Mélenchon’s audience, which mainly attracts young people concerned about environmental issues, and the lower classes (who in this case also vote for Le Pen). Macron even used terms from Mélenchon’s campaign, such as “ecological planning”.
After a campaign that was practically nonexistent in the first round as a strategic choice, leading the polls and even refusing to take part in debates, Macron went to the field intensely in this second round, multiplying visits to several places including Marseille , a bastion of Mélenchon, and a poor Parisian periphery with an immigrant population, where the leader of indomitable France won nearly half the votes on April 10th.
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Le Pen is backed by 44% of voters, Ipsos says
Macron suffers from a feeling of rejection in a part of the population, especially in the most popular strata. Disappointed with his first term in office, a section of the French rebels against him, opting for the leader of the extreme right.
Referred to by some as the “president of the rich”, polls show that part of the electorate seems detached from French concerns, arrogant and less willing to change the situation. Le Pen is therefore trying to turn the vote into a kind of “antiMacron referendum”.
At the same time, according to polls, most French people see him as someone of the stature of a head of state who can handle crises and, unlike Le Pen, represents a good image of France abroad.
Republican Front
Another difficulty for Macron is that the first round on the 10th revealed that the radical right in France has never been stronger. She collected 32% of the votes, including the three candidates (Le Pen, the extremist Éric Zemmour and the runt Nicolas DupontAignan).
Exactly twenty years after JeanMarie Le Pen, Marine’s father, reached the second round of the 2002 presidential election that led to gigantic protests in France and the victory of Jacques Chirac with more than 82% of the vote, the socalled Republican Front (Confederation different parts of the political spectrum to stop the radical right and ideas contrary to the values of the republic) has withdrawn in France.
“The civic reflex to vote for the candidate opposing the extreme right in the second round of the presidency is weakening on both the right and the left,” writes Le Monde newspaper.
Le Pen’s strategy of changing the image of the party founded by his father, the socalled “devilization,” pursued a few years ago, worked for a section of the electorate. Polls show fewer and fewer French people see it as a threat to democracy, although nearly half of the population still does.
She has focused her campaign in recent weeks on issues related to purchasing power, the main concern of the French at this time of high inflation. This prompted the other candidates, including Macron, to announce projects in this area.
Some leftwing voters, particularly those who voted for Mélenchon, from the far left, say they are “tired” of excluding the far right without it improving the situation in the country.
“There is an increasing reluctance to face the Republican front. In a polarized society, it’s difficult to ally with someone who has been opposed for years. There is a need to educate voters on the subject of the very worst,” says political scientist Nonna Mayer. . .
On April 16, there were several demonstrations in France against Le Pen and the far right, but without explicit calls to vote for Macron, who was criticized on posters and slogans despite the “no vote for Le Pen” messages.
Macron hopes to revitalize the Republican front, and more than trying to persuade voters to stick to his platform in the latter part of the campaign, he is attempting to promote the image of a wall against Le Pen’s nationalist threat. It aims, among other controversial measures, to restore control at France’s borders over people and goods already moving freely within the European Union.
“In the first round, you vote for the project that suits you best. In the second, you choose what seems closest to you. You eliminate, you build a dam,” Macron said in a television interview.
Credit, Reuters
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39% of voters who want to elect Macron want to prevent Le Pen from being elected
abstention
“We have to choose what’s best for ourselves and for society, even if it’s not exactly the (candidate) we want,” the president said in another interview. Macron also warned those who intend to abstain on Sunday, particularly young people, recalling the results of the UK’s Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in the United States.
According to polls, in the television debate between Macron and Le Pen on Wednesday, the only one in the entire election campaign, the president was considered the most combative and convincing. Macron even said that Le Pen’s proposal to ban the Islamic veil (covering only the hair) from the country’s streets and public squares would provoke a civil war in France. The comment was a way of accusing the farright candidate of dividing French society.
In addition to the transfer of votes from Mélenchon’s electorate, another crucial factor is the abstention rate in the second ballot. In the first round it was 26.3%, one of the highest in recent years. The rate was even higher among young people. On Sunday, it could be higher than the 25.4% of the second round in 2017, according to projections.
“There will probably be an abstention as a sign of political protest,” predicts expert Pascal Perrineau, professor at Sciences Po University.
“The most likely scenario is a Macron victory, which should be between 54 and 56 percent,” says Brice Teinturier, director general of the Ipsos Institute.
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