Le Pen says ‘so close’ as election battle enters crucial stage
PERPIGNAN, France: French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said Thursday she had never been ‘so close’ to power at a jubilant final rally before this weekend’s election, which polls suggest is an increasingly tight battle between her and President Emmanuel Macron.
In front of around 4,000 upbeat supporters chanting ‘President Marine!’ and ‘We’re going to win!’, Le Pen promised to help French families struggling with inflation and compared Macron to a ‘stunned boxer’.
“Never before has the prospect of a real change been so close, but it depends on you,” Le Pen told the crowd in far-right stronghold Perpignan in southern France.
“Never forget and tell people around you: if the people vote, the people will win,” she said in a speech that repeatedly appealed to the roughly one quarter of French adults who are projected to abstain on Sunday.
Last month, polls suggested Macron had an almost unassailable lead ahead heading into the first round and would go on to win the second-round runoff scheduled for April 24.
But all bets are off, with up to a quarter of voters thought to be undecided and surveys suggesting a major swing towards Le Pen, who is now shown as only marginally behind the president.
With France’s traditional rightand left-wing parties facing electoral disaster, rising far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon still believes he can sneak into a run-off and is shown running third.
The war in Ukraine as well as strains on the health system after two years of Covid-19 are high among voter concerns, behind the biggest worries of all: inflation and incomes.
“We’re going to live the founding moment of a new era,” Le Pen, 53, added, a sentiment shared by many supporters in sun-drenched Perpignan, a short trip from the Spanish border.