Youth swing gives Le Pen an unexpected election boost
Last-minute poll boost for Le Pen as under-24s voice support for candidate in first round of election
NATIONALIST Marine Le Pen has been boosted by an unexpected poll that showed the majority of young people would back her against Emmanuel Macron as France votes today in the first round of its presidential election.
A month ago Mr Macron appeared all but certain to become the first French leader to win re-election since Jacques Chirac in 2002, his popularity high after his response to the war in Ukraine.
But the polls have narrowed over the past fortnight. The latest numbers are close enough to have Mr Macron warning of a Brexit-style political earthquake if voters do not back him en masse.
A YouGov survey conducted over the past week showed 56 per cent of those aged between 18 and 24 would vote for Ms Le Pen in a run-off.
Among the general population, Ms Le Pen is projected to take 47 per cent of the vote to Mr Macron’s 53, a far closer gap than when he beat her comfortably in the election five years ago.
The campaign has become increasingly bitter in the run-up to the first round, with Mr Macron accusing his main rival of being a “liar”, “racist” and a “sham”.
Ms Le Pen said the incumbent had become “feverish in the final stages”.
The wave of youth support for Ms Le Pen has surprised many, after a campaign that has focused as much on the cost of living crisis as her tough positioning on immigration, Islam and French identity.
David Quentin, a 25-year-old agricultural engineer who has been handing out Le Pen leaflets, said her nationalist message was attracting alienated young voters. “Our generation has known all kinds of problems. We’ve always seen war on the TV. We’ve always known economic crisis and terrorism, environmental problems.
“It’s always felt like the end of the world to us. We’ve lost our point of reference, as a country,” he said.
Mr Macron is forecast to win around 27 per cent of the vote in today’s firstround election, with Ms Le Pen on 22 per cent, paving the way for a head-tohead in two weeks’ time.
FOR midwifery student Kelly Betesh, the choice is obvious when France goes to the polls for the first round of its presidential election today: the nationalist Marine Le Pen.
“She’s the only one who’s defending us, who will make France safer and more beautiful,” Ms Betesh, in her 20s, wrote as she shared a “Vote Marine” video to her Instagram page.
Under 53-year-old Ms Le Pen, she hoped for “a France that offers its youth a future”.
The student is far from alone among her peers in backing Ms Le Pen, a longtime fixture of the French political scene who is now closer to power than ever before.
Her campaign for the Elysée has been boosted by a wave of support from young people, with a poll showing that the majority of under-24s would back her in a run-off as the country votes in a first round today.
Mr Macron until recently appeared all but certain to win re-election, his popularity riding high after his response to the war in Ukraine.
But the polls have narrowed sharply over the past fortnight.
The latest predict that Mr Macron, the incumbent, will win around 27 percent of the vote in today’s first-round election, with Right-wing Ms Le Pen on 22 per cent, paving the way for a headto-head in two weeks.
A YouGov survey conducted over the last week showed 56 per cent of those aged between 18 and 24 would vote for the nationalist candidate in a run-off.
Other polls project Ms Le Pen taking 47 per cent of the vote to Mr Macron’s 53 among the general population.
Ms Le Pen’s campaign has focused as much on the cost of living crisis as her tough positioning on immigration, Islam and French identity – a combination that appears to have appealed to many young people.
The National Rally leader was mobbed by selfie-taking youngsters during a final campaign stop in the southwestern port of Narbonne.
The youth vote is split in the first round, with far-Right polemicist Eric Zemmour and hard-Left firebrand JeanLuc Mélenchon, the favoured candidates of the under-24s.
Nominees from traditional parties, including the Socialists’ Anne Hidalgo,
‘Can Le Pen win? Yes. Is it likely? I still think Macron will make it, but it’s dangerously close’
and Valérie Pécresse of Les Républicains, are trailing.
Support from the young, however, is not necessarily a factor that works to Ms Le Pen’s favour.
The high proportion of voters planning to stay away from the ballot, out of a lack of enthusiasm for any of the candidates, has added extra unpredictability to this election.
A record 31 per cent could abstain, polls suggest – and of these, the young are most likely to stay away.
In Paris’s youthful Ménilmontant neighbourhood, young voters lining the café terrasses were split between those backing Mr Mélenchon – France’s answer to Jeremy Corbyn – and those skipping the vote altogether.
“Going to vote would mean putting my faith in a system that I know can’t satisfy my choices, so I’m not very interested in it,” said Etienne Sellier, 25-yearold intern, untempted by a choice between “the far-Right and the awful candidate just next to it”.
Surveys suggest that Mr Macron’s older and wealthier supporters, meanwhile, are the most certain to actually show up today.
“Can Le Pen win? Yes. Is it likely? I still think Macron will make it, but it’s dangerously close,” said Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London.
The French should have a clear indication of the results shortly after voting closes at 8pm, based on partial counts from a representative sample of polling stations. The final results are expected early Monday. A former investment banker who stormed to power promising a centrist, pro-business shake-up, 44-year-old Mr Macron insists that France has become a more dynamic country since 2017.
The staunch pro-European defends his record of steering France through the pandemic and argues he is the safest pair of hands at a time of war.
But Mr Marlière said that Mr Macron had committed a dangerous error in suggesting that he was too busy doing his job to debate with rival candidates.
His relative invisibility on the campaign trail has benefited Ms Le Pen, her ratings largely undented by her previous admiration for Vladimir Putin and a large Russian loan that her party is still paying back.