Macron Faces Defeat As Rightist Prexy Bet Le Pen Surges In Polls

French President Emmanuel Macron, a political centrist, for months looked like a shoo-in to become France’s first president in 20 years to win a second term. But that scenario blurred in the campaign’s closing stages.

Photo Insert: In courting voters, Macron has economic successes to point to: The French economy is rebounding faster than expected from the battering of COVID-19, with a 2021 growth rate of 7%, the highest since 1969.

The pain of inflation and of the pump, food, and energy prices that are hitting low-income households particularly hard subsequently roared back as dominant election themes, John Leicester reported for the Associated Press (AP).

They could drive many voters Sunday, April 10, into the arms of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Macron’s political nemesis. Writing for Foreign Policy on April 9, journalist Michelle Barbero said polls show Macron still in the lead with about 26 percent, trailed by Le Pen at 25 percent.

Even more worrisome for Macron are the predictions for the second round. In 2017, when the pair faced off in a presidential runoff for the first time, Macron’s victory was overwhelming. Now, the president is shown barely nipping Le Pen.

Moreover, Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported as late as two weeks ago that polls showed Macron having a 90 percent probability of winning.

Macron, 44, trounced Le Pen by a landslide to become France’s youngest president in 2017. The win for the former banker who is a fervent proponent of European collaboration was seen as a victory against populist, nationalist politics, coming in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the White House and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union (EU), both in 2016.

In courting voters, Macron has economic successes to point to: The French economy is rebounding faster than expected from the battering of COVID-19, with a 2021 growth rate of 7%, the highest since 1969.

Unemployment is down to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, sparking Europe’s worst security crisis since World War II, Macron also got a polling bump, with people rallying around the wartime leader.

But the 53-year-old Le Pen is now a more polished, formidable, and savvy political foe as she makes her third attempt to become France’s first woman president. And she has campaigned particularly hard and for months on cost of living concerns, capitalizing on the issue that pollsters say is foremost on voters’ minds.

Le Pen also pulled off two remarkable feats. Despite her plans to sharply curtail immigration and dial back some rights for Muslims in France, she nevertheless appears to have convinced growing numbers of voters that she is no longer the dangerous, racist nationalist extremist that critics, including Macron, accuse her of being.

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