Today, the second round of the French presidential election will be held, in which, as in 2017, 44-year-old Emmanuel Macron and 53-year-old Marine Le Pen will once again compete for the seat of the head of state. According to the latest public opinion polls, as the voting day approaches, the gap between the current president and his challenger, the president of the anti-immigration National Compact, is growing:
while last week's polls still indicated a close contest, three days before the elections, it seems that Macron can count on a ten percentage point advantage over his rival.
According to analysts, despite this, an extremely fierce fight is to be expected, since in recent years many voters have become disillusioned with Macron, who defines himself as a centrist, but pursues a more center-right policy, while Le Pen tried to find a way to the current politics instead of the identity and immigration policy issues that generated social divisions in the past. to the hearts of ordinary people who are dissatisfied with the system, that lately he has focused more on livelihood problems in his election campaign.
In terms of the outcome of the election, however, it is crucial how the citizens whose supported candidates are eliminated in the first round vote. According to experts, voters who support the right-wing publicist Eric Zemmour are likely to vote for Le Pen - Zemmour himself urged his supporters to do so. At the same time, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical left-wing Disobedient France, who finished third in the first round, made it clear that not a single vote should be cast for Le Pen, even though he clearly did not encourage voting for Macron.
Mélenchon's sympathizers, who are disillusioned with the political elite, may even be the tip of the scales, since the left-wing politician won nearly 22 percent of the votes in the first round.
while the center-right republicans and socialists, traditionally the dominant parties of the French political palette, shrank almost completely, even though their candidates clearly encouraged a vote for Macron. In any case, Le Pen is trying to get the presidency of the republic for the third time, and for the second time she managed to get into the decisive second round of the presidential election.
What consequences would Emmanuel Macron's victory have on Europe?
In the meantime, the leaders of several European countries assured Macron of their support: the center-left leaders of Germany, Spain and Portugal urged the French to vote for the incumbent head of state in a joint statement. In their statement published in the center-left French daily Le Monde, they argue that the election awaiting the French is extremely important not only for France, but "for all of us in Europe".
You have to choose between a democrat and a far-right candidate - he states without mentioning names, adding that while the former believes that his country can be strong within the strong and autonomous European Union, the latter sided with those who openly oppose our freedom and democracy attack.
Source: Hungarian Nation
Featured image: MTI/EPA/Keystone/Alessandro Della Valle
