As the Hungarian people went to the polls, the rush in the French election campaign intensified.
Two months ago, polls showed President Emmanuel Macron poised to win the presidential election against right-wing Marine Le Pen with 60 percent of support. Now management has shrunk sharply.
New polls over the weekend show support at 53 percent, a difference of just six percentage points.
In opinion polls, voters are asked who they would vote for if Macron and Le Pen advance to the second round. The French electoral system allows a candidate to win an election if he or she obtains more than 50 percent in the first round. If no one does, the two candidates with the highest support will go to the second round.
Macron won the second round against Le Pen in 2017 with more than 66 percent of the vote.
– Look what happened
Although Macron remains the frontrunner to win, he has come out and warned people not to take the outcome of the election – and a stable and peaceful France – for granted.
– The danger of extremism has reached new heights, because in recent months and years we have seen hatred and alternative realities become a normal thing. Just look at what happened with Brexit and many other elections. Macron said during a speech this weekend that what seemed unlikely did happen.
The meeting was the president’s first and only meeting prior to the April 10 election.
Don’t believe in polls. Do not believe the commentators. Do not believe those who say that it is impossible or unimaginable. They look at us. Look how you are. Five years ago, people said it was impossible. He urged Macron to consider Brexit and the number of options Britain had, which seem never to be implemented, according to the financial times.
Talk about terrorism all the time
The turning point
The impending elections could put an end to the popular president as the country’s leader after only one term. Opinion polls rose sharply for Macron in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine. The president was seen as a confident leader in a time of conflict.
Since then, the wind has turned. This is despite Macron’s leading role in imposing sanctions on Russia and the fact that the war is still in full swing.
Some parties have also tried to refute Macron’s image as a confident leader. Among them is Eric Zemmour, who is considered more right-wing than Le Pen.
At an election rally in Paris, he claimed that France would become “a great Lebanon characterized by corruption, misery, Islamization and violence” if he did not win the elections himself. During the meeting, the audience began chanting “Kill Macron.”
Zemmour is now behind Le Pen, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not helped him. Recently, many of his previous statements appeared on social media, in which he expressed his great admiration for Vladimir Putin. Among other things, he stated that he dreams of “French Putin” and that Ukraine does not exist.
– collapse
In the months leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, France’s assessments of the situation contrasted with bleak expectations from allied nations, who had warned that a military attack was imminent. Macron pursued diplomacy to the end and also traveled to Moscow to meet Putin in person.
Unlike Le Pen, Macron emphasized that relations and relations with both Europe and the European Union are strong, both in terms of defence, the environment and the economy.
– Macron said at the electoral conference in front of 30,000 people present: The peaceful world we used to believe in will last forever, which we thought could not be stopped, and it seems to be collapsing before our eyes.
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