Steph Deschamps / March 30, 2022
The presidential race in France is tightening with 12 days to go, as incumbent Emmanuel Macron's lead, still the favorite, has collapsed against his main rival, far-right tenor Marine Le Pen, in the second round, according to a poll released Wednesday.
According to the opinion survey conducted by Elabe, Mr. Macron would garner 28% of voting intentions (+0.5 points) in the first round, for which he would finish in the lead. But the gap with Ms. Le Pen is reduced by seven points in the second round, to 52.5% against 47.5%.
The two candidates were given 56% and 44% respectively last week, a twelve point lead in favor of the head of state.
The Macron-Le Pen duel, announced a year ago, seems tighter than ever. The outgoing president, thanks to the crisis in Ukraine during which his statesmanlike posture was widely put forward, seems to have been caught up by Franco-French themes.
Marine Le Pen, driven by a campaign focused on purchasing power, the number one concern of the French, confirmed her upward trend in the first round (21%, +1 point), already observed in the various surveys throughout March.
The leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is consolidating his position as third man (15.5%, +0.5 points) ahead of the other far-right candidate, Eric Zemmour (10.5%, +0.5 points), and the traditional right-wing candidate, Valérie Pécresse, who is still in fifth place in the poll (9.5%, -0.5 points)
Voting intentions are not a forecast of the outcome of the election. They give an indication of the balance of power and dynamics on the day the survey was conducted.
The survey was conducted over the Internet from March 28 to 30, using the quota method, among a sample of 1,531 people representative of residents of metropolitan France aged 18 and over, including 1,416 registered voters. The margin of error is between 1.1 and 3.1 points.
The first round is scheduled for April 10, the second for April 24, during the school vacations.