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FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL Macron and his far-right challenger traded barbs today as they began a final fortnight of campaigning ahead of a run-off vote set to be much closer than their 2017 contest.
After a first round of voting on Sunday, Macron came top with 27.85%, while far-right leader Marine Le Pen finished second at 23.15%, final results showed today.
As the top two finishers, they advanced to a second round scheduled for 24 April.
Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon came close to qualifying for the run-off after a late surge gave him a score of just under 22%.
The Macron-Le Pen duel is a replay of the 2017 election final from which Macron emerged victorious with 66%. This time, however, polls suggest it will be a closer contest.
Making an aggressive start to the next phase of the campaign, Macron headed to deprived former mining and steel-making areas of northern France that have become Le Pen strongholds.
“I’m not going to pretend nothing happened, I have heard the message from those who voted for the extremes, including those who voted for Ms Le Pen,” Macron told a scrum of journalists who followed him in Denain.
“I realise that people will vote for me to stop her, but I want to convince people. So I may possibly round out my project” with more social welfare measures, he said.
Macron later said he was prepared to raise the state pension age from 62 to 64 – rather than 65 as his campaign programme pledged – to avoid “too many tensions” and “build a consensus”.
In an interview with the Voix du Nord newspaper, he called Le Pen a “demagogue”, saying she was “someone who said to people what they want to hear at the moment they want to hear it”.
Cost of living
Le Pen met with her campaign team this morning before heading to visit a cereal farmer in the central Yonne region, which placed her first in Sunday’s vote.
Returning to the main priority of French people – and the focus of all her campaigning – she accused Macron of doing too little to help voters with the rising cost of living.
“Anticipating events is absolutely essential. At the moment, we’re improvising,” she said, before repeating her promises to slash taxes on food and fuel.
The arch-nationalist, 53, also denied that she planned for France to leave the European Union, saying instead she wanted to “change the structure” of the 27-member club.
Polls gauging second-round voting intentions mostly point to around 53% for Macron and 47% for Le Pen.
But one poll by the Ifop-Fiducial group suggested Macron could have only a razor-thin win with 51% versus 49%.
While opponents accuse her of being divisive and racist, Le Pen has sought to project a more moderate image in this campaign and has focused on voters’ daily worries over inflation.
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Both candidates will now scramble to woo voters of their defeated first-round rivals.
“We’re going to have to win over the French people who didn’t vote for Emmanuel Macron in the first round,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal told the France Inter broadcaster on Monday.
In an early boost for the president, Communist Party candidate Fabien Roussel, Socialist Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot of the Greens and right-wing Republicans candidate Valerie Pecresse said they would vote for him to prevent the far-right leader coming to power.
Melenchon told his supporters not to give a “single vote” to Le Pen, but he stopped short of backing Macron directly.
“If Macron wants to convince our voters, he’s going have to work for it,” said Melenchon’s campaign director, Manuel Bompard.
Meanwhile Le Pen’s far-right rival Eric Zemmour, who garnered just over seven percent on Sunday, threw his weight behind her.
TV debate
A pivotal moment in the next stage of the campaign will come on 20 April when the two candidates take part in a live TV debate, just like five years ago when a better-prepared Macron won the day.
But this time will be different, said political scientist Brice Teinturier.
Macron, he said, “is no longer the new candidate representing a kind of freshness” while Le Pen “is no longer the person people automatically reject”.
Macron is expected to target her past admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, an explosive issue during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Marine Le Pen is the candidate for depending on Russia,” Macron told the Voix du Nord.
The candidates from France’s traditional parties of government – the Socialists and the Republicans – suffered humiliating defeats.
Sunday’s vote spelled disaster for Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, who won only 1.75%, a historic low for the party.
The vote for Pecresse’s Republicans collapsed to 4.78% from 20% in 2017.
Pecresse today admitted her campaign finances, which included €5 million of her own money, were in a “critical” state, and called for donations from supporters.
Public campaign spending reimbursements are drastically reduced for candidates who fail to reach five percent.
Abstention on Sunday hit 26%, a sharp increase from the first round in 2017.
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A duel sounds like an excellent idea! It’s part of an old French tradition. Give each a flintlock duelling pistol and let them have at it. Gender in this case would give neither one the advantage. My money is on Macron shooting himself in the foot as he’s already demonstrated an unerring ability to do that recently. It would be fascinating to watch. It would also save the citizens a fortune in electoral costs. If there’s a successful outcome I see no reason for a general election here when we could just have a three-way shootout between Micheál, Mary Lou and Leo…
@William Tallon: MaryLou would have Micheal shot, stuffed & mounted on the wall before he knew what hit him! Leo I don’t know about. He’s already survived her shotgun a few times.
How ‘far right’ is she I wonder?
Anyone know any of her policies or does everyone just know she is far right?
Changing the structure of the EU doesn’t exactly make her far right ..
@Colm Molloy: she’s been leader of the National Front party that her father founded in 1972. She’s anti immigration, anti-EU, has pledged to withdraw from NATO and is pro-Putin. She only recently changed her stance on anti-abortion and anti-same sex marriage to appeal to a greater audience for her third attempt at the presidency.
Could the ECB’s Christine Lagarde come out with a statement soon after the French election to say that raising interest rates is now a high priority and rates hikes will have to come sooner than previously anticipated?
Feels like this could all have been done in one go with ranked choice voting like we have. I expect a lot of the traditional left and right voted for Macron to keep Le Pen out so you don’t get a propper picture of people’s wants.
@Edmund Murphy: yes, the two-round system always seemed inefficient to me, but now it seems to be actively affecting the first round outcome, with the side effect that most of the candidates will be unable to have their campaign expenses reimbursed in part by the state, meaning that in future, only wealthier individuals or organisations will be able to run. Or, as in the case of Marine Le Pen, they will be funded by Putin…
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