Ballotage in France: Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen go for the presidency with an unenthusiastic electorate

Like five years ago, Emmanuel Macron starts as a favorite to win the second round of the French presidential elections. But if her victory was unquestionable in 2017, the advance of the far-right Marine Le Pen tinges with some uncertainty in the duel at the polls this Sunday.

Polls in mainland France will open at 8 (local time, 6 GMT) and close 12 hours later, followed by projections that usually predict the outcome with some accuracy.

France is aware of this face-to-face, as is Europe, which in case of surprise would be deprived of one of its main supporters and would experience the coming to power of a eurosceptic at the head of its second economy and one of its engines together with Germany.

The verdict is in the hands of almost 49 million French people at the end of the most indifferent, least passionate campaign, the one that has attracted less interest in recent years, which predicts an abstention figure that will rub shoulders with the highest in history.

The spotlight will be on elections that start with a clear favorite but not without suspense.

Although all the polls predict a victory for Macron, they have never before placed a far-right candidate so close to victory.

In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front, fell below one-fifth of the votes with 5.5 million votes and fifteen years later his daughter Marine, who has been washing the party's face for years, exceeded a third of the ballots and 10 million supporters.

If the polls are not confused, this Sunday it will exceed 40% and will add about 6 million voters to those of five years ago.

The heiress of the extreme right has achieved a large part of her bet, turning her movement into another match, smoothing rejections to the maximum, rounding off the most annoying angles and placing herself at the gates of power.

DEL BREXIT A TRUMP

Some polls place him at the limits of the margin of error, within the reach of a major surprise that some compare to the one that took place in the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum in 2015 or the election of Donald Trump in the United States the following year.

As then, no survey predicted it, but it did, which justified Macron's calls to avoid overconfidence.

The president has seen how re-election, which seemed like a matter almost closed a month ago, forced him to go down to the electoral arena and fight with all his weapons.

Five years marked by the yellow vest protests, the scratches of the pandemic and inflation fueled by the consequences of the Ukrainian war have mitigated its economic gains and given life to its rival.

The rejection of the extreme right is no longer a guarantee of success because a large part of the electorate has lost its fear and the calls of the other parties to block its coming to power are more lukewarm than in the past.

ALL WEAPONS

On the diplomatic front of Ukraine during the first round, Macron benefited from the strength of his statesman's stature to finish in the lead, with 27.8% of the vote, more than four points above Le Pen.

Threatened, the president went down to the electoral arena and toured towns and cities with two messages under his arm: on the one hand, to remember the true face of the far right, anti-Semitic and pro-Russian. On the other hand, to send winks to the nearly eight million voters who bet on the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round.

For them, it has softened their pension reform and put ecology at the center of their project, which, according to surveys, has allowed them to convince two out of five.

The same courtship to which Le Pen, self-proclaimed spokesperson of the people, candidate for purchasing power and advocate for the causes of the most disadvantaged, has submitted them, a message that has permeated the lower layers of society and 20% of the electorate of Mélenchon.

The far-right has emphasized the rejection that Macron awakens, on his “arrogance” and the “haughty” with which the president of the elites, far from the people, addresses the French, the trick with which he hopes to awaken the abstentionists who are the only ones who can make him star in a huge electoral surprise.

The leader of the far left, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who won a tight third place in the first round of voting on April 10, has flatly refused to urge his millions of followers to support Macron, while insisting that they should not cast a single vote for Le Pen.

The stakes are huge, as Macron promises reform and greater integration of the EU, while Le Pen insists that the bloc must be modified in what its opponents describe as a “Frexit” by another name.

Macron has also bitterly opposed his plan to outlaw the use of the Muslim headscarf in public.

If elected, Macron is expected, in a symbolic gesture, to address his followers on the Champ de Mars, in central Paris, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

(With information from EFE and AFP)

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