Opinion polling released just days before Sunday’s French presidential second round vote has put little distance between President Emmanuel Macron and populist challenger Marine Le Pen.
A poll released Thursday by the firm Odoxa has Macron and Le Pen just six points apart, with Macron receiving 53 per cent in the polling and Le Pen receiving 47 per cent.
According to Odoxa, President Macron is having great difficulties in wooing voters who turned out for other candidates in the first round of the election, and has not been able to attract more than 50 per cent of the voters of any of the candidates who were knocked out in the first round.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen should be able to count on around 80 per cent of those who voted for conservative writer and pundit Eric Zemmour.
The polling also claims that Wednesday’s debate between the two candidates did nothing to help either side, with Macron coming off as unsympathetic to 58 per cent of respondents and 72 per cent viewing him as “president of the rich.”
While the debate was viewed by some as having no clear winner, it was seen as a satisfying result for Le Pen, whose debate performance during the second round of the presidential election in 2017 was viewed by many as a disaster.
Another poll after the debate showed six in ten French were supportive of Le Pen’s proposal to ban the Islamic veil in public spaces, a policy Macron came out strongly against, arguing a ban would have to be given to all religious symbols.
A path to victory for Le Pen could emerge due to the large number of voters claiming they will abstain from voting entirely, with the Odoxa poll noting that the number of people refusing to vote, leaving their voting card blank, or spoiling their ballot could reach record numbers.
Janice Atkinson, a former British Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and close ally of Marine Le Pen during her tenure, told Breitbart London she thinks the race will be close.
“I think it’ll be closer than expected. If Macron wins there will be queries around vote-rigging — right or wrong — because the people do not trust politicians who are seen as the global elite, [and] Macron is certainly one of them,” Atkinson said.
“If it’s a low turnout, if those that voted for Macron last time but now find him unpalatable do not vote, the Zemmour and Dupont-Aignan vote goes to Marine and some of Les Republicans vote goes to her, she could do it,” Atkinson added.
The failed candidate for Les Republicains — France’s establishment centre-right party, roughly equivalent to Britain’s Conservatives or America’s Republicans — urged her supporters to vote for Macron, however.
Should Le Pen pull off an upset victory on Sunday, she would still face challenges in the parliamentary elections, which are set to take place in June.
Marion Marechal, the niece of Le Pen and a vice-president of Eric Zemmour’s political party Reconquest, has suggested Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and other conservatives form a united right-wing coalition to either help Le Pen govern in case of victory or to hinder Macron if he is re-elected.
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