All latest opinion polls and the results from the first round of the French Presidential elections point to a victory for Emmanuel Macron provided that a large proportion of leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s voters back the French president over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen.
The latest poll conducted by Ipsos for Le Monde, shows Macron leading with 56.5% of the vote and beating Le Pen with 43.5%.
According to the official figure of the French ministry of Interior, in the first round of the election, around 35 million voters went to the ballots, out of which 9,783,058 voted for Macron.
If Macron gets half of the votes of Mélenchon’s supporters, meaning 3.8 million votes, then Macron will exceed 13 million votes and will have a comfortable victory considering that all far-right supporters united – both of Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour – cannot exceed 11 million votes.
Le Pen got 8,133,828 votes in the first round and together with Zemmour, who got 2,485,226 votes and vowed to back her in the second round, total 10,619,054 votes. But the carry-over of votes is not automatic, and Le Pen benefits from a carry-over of votes, however small, from all electorates.
Analysts in Paris suggest that even securing 1/3 of Mélenchon’s votes would be enough for the president on condition that voters for the centre-right Valérie Pécresse all vote for Macron. Pécresse got 1,679,000 votes in the first round.
Leftist daily La Libération on its 23-24 April edition called on leftist voters on its frontpage to vote “against the extreme-right and in favour of Macron”.
Number of votes of the first round of French Presidential elections
Macron also can rely on the 1.6 million votes of Green Yannick Jadot who earlier this week said, “Vote Macron without hesitation, without ambiguity, in all clarity”.
On the other hand, Macron cannot rely on the 1.1 million votes of independent Résistons! party, as his candidate in the first round Jean Lassalle said after the Macron-Le Pen debate that he will vote blank in the second round.
A source from Macron’s La République en marche told EURACTIV in Paris that a “clear victory of Macron in the second round will pave the way for a resounding victory in the June legislative elections”.
“A neck-and-neck race will allow the far right to hope for a win in June,” the source added.
(Sarantis Michalopoulos and Davide Basso report from Paris)
Source: euractiv.com
