Macron kickstarts re-election campaign as Le Pen gains ground
The French president Emmanuel Macron is aiming to kickstart his re-election campaign this week with walkabouts outside Paris and a big rally in the capital, after the diplomatic pressures of the war in Ukraine limited his canvassing at home – leading to a dip in the polls and worries of a low turn-out.
Macron, 44, is hoping next month to be the first French president to win reelection in 20 years, but he has recently dropped two to three points in the polls as the gap between him and the farright candidate Marine Le Pen narrows. While he remains favourite, the next 10 days of campaigning are seen as fraught and risky amid anger over the cost of living, disillusionment with the level of campaign debate and politics in general.
“I adore rallies but let’s be clearheaded – I can’t do many!” Macron recently said on TV, explaining that he had instead been at international summits and engaged in diplomacy on Ukraine. “No one would understand if I wasn’t there to protect the French.” Macron, after sweeping to power in 2017 promising to transform France with a new brand of politics that was neither left nor right, is polling at about 27% in the first round, followed by Le Pen on about 17%. Le Pen is gaining ground after campaigning hard on France’s cost of living crisis.
But if Macron faces Le Pen in the final round runoff on 24 April, the result is predicted to be much closer than when he won five years ago with 66%, with one poll this week putting Macron at 53% to Le Pen’s 47%.
A third candidate, the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is also steadily rising, and abstention could be as high as 30%. Of those who say they will vote, four in 10 are still not sure for whom – adding to a greater degree of unpredictability.
Most French voters trust Macron to lead on the issue of war in Ukraine, which initially appeared to cement his position, and at campaign events will regularly says he’s off to speak to a world leader on the phone straight afterwards. His presidential rivals on