Latest polling data from France on Tuesday (17 October) puts the nationalist Rassemblement National (RN), with MEP candidate Jordan Bardella, in the lead, while President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist and pro-European Renaissance party lags behind as the European elections draw closer.
In an IFOP poll for Le Figaro ahead of the June 2024 elections, Marine Le Pen’s RN list is up to 28%, three points on the previous poll in August and five points on its result in 2019. That gives it an eight-point lead on Renaissance.
In the 2019 elections, the RN and the presidential party (La République en Marche, now Renaissance) were neck and neck.
If translated into votes, the RN could take the leadership of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, which brings together the eurosceptic far right in the European Parliament. The Lega party in Italy, led by Le Pen ally Matteo Salvini, currently holds that position but has suffered a drop in support.
For now, the Macronists are polling at 20%, down two points on the last poll and the 2019 result, if Stéphane Séjourné or Thierry Breton head their list. Séjourné led the list in 2019 and chairs the Renew group in the European Parliament, while Breton is the outgoing European Commissioner for the Internal Market.
The conservative right (Les Républicains, EPP) is holding steady at around 8% and appears to be resisting the emergence of a second far-right list, that of Eric Zemmour’s party Reconquête!, led by Marion Maréchal, Marine Le Pen’s niece.
Despite ramping up its campaigning on immigration in recent weeks, Zemmour’s group is polling around 6%, barely above the qualification threshold (5%). The list of the sovereignist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan is on 2%.
A new balance on the left
On the left, three out of four parties are likely to improve on their results at the last election. The lists of La France insoumise (LFI, The Left) led by MEP Manon Aubry and the Parti socialiste (PS, allied with Place Publique), possibly led by outgoing MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, are each polling at 9% – up from around 6% in 2019.
The French Communist Party did not obtain any MEPs in 2019 and is right on the qualification threshold with 5% of voting intentions. Fabien Roussel’s candidacy for the 2022 presidential election has boosted its profile.
Having been the leading political force on the left in 2019 (13.5%), the Europe Ecologie – Les Verts (EELV, Les Verts/ALE) list led by MEP Marie Toussaint has dropped to 8% of voting intentions, down on the previous survey.
Projections by Europe Elects in September pointed to a collapse of the Greens across the EU, who could lose a third of their MEPs to the Socialists or the radical left, depending on the country.
In France, an alliance of left-wing parties standing on a single list looks increasingly unlikely. The PCF, PS, and EELV have either backed the principle of having their own lists or designated their heads of list. The survey suggested that the four main left-wing lists (EELV, LFI, PS, PCF) would score better in 2024 (31-32%) than in 2019 (28.47%).
France is the continent’s second most populous country, sending 81 of the Parliament’s 720 MEPs to Brussels.
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[Edited by Benjamin Fox/Alice Taylor]
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Source: euractiv.com
