Macron favourite for French presidency
paris — France’s outgoing president, Francois Hollande, on Monday urged people to back centrist Emmanuel Macron in a vote to choose his successor next month and reject far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose place in the runoff represented a “risk” for France.
Macron and Le Pen, leader of the National Front, go head-to-head on May 7 after taking the top two places in Sunday’s first round.
Opinion polls indicate that the business-friendly Macron, who has never held elected office, will take at least 61 per cent of the vote against Le Pen after two defeated rivals pledged to back him to thwart her eurosceptic, anti-immigrant platform.
Hollande, a Socialist nearing the end of five years of unpopular rule, threw his weight behind his former economy minister in a televised address, saying Le Pen’s policies were divisive and stigmatised sections of the population.
“The presence of the far-right in the second round is a risk for the country,” he said. “What is at stake is France’s make-up, its unity, its membership of Europe and its place in the world.”
Global markets reacted with relief to Sunday’s vote, which broke the dominance of established parties of the centre-left and centre-right but still left the most market-friendly and internationally-minded of the remaining contenders in pole position to become France’s next leader.
The euro touched five-month peaks while Europe’s STOXX 600 index rose 2 per cent.
Surveys pointing to a clear Macron victory soothed investors who have been unnerved by Le Pen’s pledges to ditch the euro, print money and possibly quit the EU. Many had feared another anti-establishment shock to follow Britain’s “Brexit” vote and Donald Trump’s election as US president.
Opening the battle for secondround votes, Le Pen highlighted the continuing threat of militancy, which has claimed more than 230 lives in France since 2015, saying the 39-year-old Macron was “to say the least, weak” on the issue.
Le Pen has promised to suspend the EU’s open-border agreement on France’s frontiers and expel foreigners who are on the watch lists of intelligence services.
Macron’s internal security programme calls for 10,000 more police officers, and 15,000 new prison places, and he has recruited a number of security experts to his entourage.
However, opinion polls over the course of the campaign have consistently found voters to be more concerned about the economy and the trustworthiness of politicians.
Others in Le Pen’s campaign took aim on Monday at what they see as
The challenge is to break completely with the system which has been unable to find solutions to the problems of our country for more than 30 years
further weak spots: Macron’s previous job as an investment banker and his role as a deregulating economy minister under Hollande.
Analysts say Le Pen’s best chance of overhauling Macron’s lead in the polls is to paint him as a part of an elite aloof from ordinary French people and their problems.
“Emmanuel is not a patriot. He sold off national companies. He criticised French culture,” Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Le Pen’s National Front, told BFM TV.
Philippot called Macron “arrogant” and said his victory speech on Sunday had shown disdain for the French people by making it appear
10k more police officers in Macron’s internal security programme
as though the presidency was already won.
In that speech, Macron appeared to respond to Le Pen’s claim to be the protector of France’s workers and their values by saying: “I want to be the president of patriots in the face of a threat from nationalists.”
Le Pen needs to avoid a repetition of 2002, when her father, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, surprisingly made the second round, but was then humiliated by right-wing president Jacques Chirac as mainstream parties united to block a party they considered racist and anti-Semitic.
His daughter has done much to soften the National Front’s image, gathering support especially among young people — a quarter of whom are unemployed — with her promises to push back against “rampant globalisation”.
Still, two defeated candidates — conservative Francois Fillon and Socialist Benoit Hamon — did not even wait for Sunday’s count to urge their supporters to rally behind Macron, who took 23.74 per cent of votes on Sunday to Le Pen’s 21.53.
A Harris survey saw Macron going on to win the runoff against her by 64 per cent to 36. An Ipsos/Sopra Steria poll gave a similar result while a new poll by Opinionway on Monday put the margin at 61 per cent to 39 per cent. Whichever candidate wins on May 7 will need to try to build a majority six weeks later in a parliament where the National Front currently has only two seats and Macron’s year-old En Marche! (Onwards!) movement has none. —