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PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen used the last hours of Friday’s election campaign to present this weekend’s presidential election as a referendum on the country’s future, as opinion polls show a growing lead for the current president.
The final averages of the polls show that Macron is 10 percentage points ahead of Le Pen, gaining some momentum after the difficult completion of the first round of elections two weeks ago.
But a disappointing victory for Le Pen still remains an opportunity. Final polls missed a gap of nearly nine percentage points five years ago, and turnout could play a crucial role in Sunday’s vote.
Macron v. Le Pen 2022: What to know about the run-off in the French presidential election
Both candidates seemed eager to avoid unwanted surprises on Friday, halting their latest campaign in areas they won in the first round and whose votes they will need in the runoff. Le Pen, 53, met with voters in the area of the Pas-de-Calais, a far-right fortress, and visited a medical center, making a last-ditch effort to present himself as a candidate close to the people, including those forgotten by the government. Macron.
“We made an information campaign, a field campaign. “I met tens of thousands of French people,” she said. “I think we did a very good campaign.
Meanwhile, the 44-year-old Macron traveled to the southern French city of Figac, where two weeks ago he was 13 percentage points ahead of Le Pen. The incumbent did almost no campaign before the first round, but hit hard in the last stage.
“April 24 is a referendum on the future of France,” Macron told BFM on Friday night, in his last pre-election interview, comparing the stakes – and the potential risks of abstention – with the 2016 US election and the Brexit vote. “This is a choice between leaving or not leaving Europe … a choice between abandoning the environment or not, a choice between abandoning or not abandoning the secular republic.
French law prohibits any campaign or poll from midnight on Friday until the election results are received.
The biggest challenge for Macron is no longer “the amount of votes that Le Pen herself will receive”, but rather his ability to fight any tendency among the people who supported him in 2017 not to vote this time. said Antoine Jardin, a political scientist. .
Macron’s re-election strategy has largely focused on left-leaning voters and trying to reactivate the French Republican Front, a broad coalition of voters to prevent a far-right presidency.
“France is one bloc,” Macron said on Friday, addressing voters at Figeac.
Five years ago, this coalition helped Macron defeat Le Pen by more than 30 percentage points.
But now Le Pen has brought the far right closer than ever to the French presidency, sparking concerns in other European capitals.
Europe fears a possible presidency of Le Pen in France as a threat from within
In an unusual post on Friday, the leaders of Germany, Spain and Portugal suggested that French voters re-elect Macron to protect themselves from the far-right threat to European values. The article did not name any of the candidates directly.
“The choice the French are facing is crucial for France and for all of us in Europe,” the three leaders wrote in France’s center-left newspaper Le Monde. “They must choose between a democratic candidate who believes that France is stronger in a powerful and autonomous European Union and a far-right candidate who openly stands on the side of those who attack our freedom and democracy, which are core values.” which we inherited. directly from the French Enlightenment.
Macron focuses on Le Pen for Russia, Putin’s ties in the French election debate
Macron chose a similar language to attack Le Pen in Wednesday’s televised debate, the only direct meeting of the candidates. He described her as more radical than she would admit, and tied to Russian interests, citing a loan for her 2017 campaign from a Russian state-owned bank.
Le Pen on Friday described Macron’s accusations as “slanderous”.
French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to repel the victory of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the April 24 presidential election. (Video: James Cornsilk, Rick Noak, Alexa Juliana Ard / The Washington Post, Photo: Jackie Lay / The Washington Post)
In 2017, thousands of internal emails about Macron’s campaign were released by Russian-linked hackers on the night before the election, just before the mandatory end of the campaign. This was widely seen as a Russian attempt to bolster Le Pen, who regularly admired Russian President Vladimir Putin, was highly critical of NATO and advocated France’s exit from the European Union.
In this campaign, Le Pen tried to moderate his image and distance himself from Putin. She condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said she would welcome Ukrainian refugees to France.
“Changing her position on Vladimir Putin and Russia was a must,” said Martin Quens, deputy director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund. “There was no other solution.”
How Marine Le Pen moderated his image and approached the French presidency
She still opposes the embargo on Russian oil and gas and wants a referendum to end immigration.
However, polls show that French voters thought more about economic issues than foreign policy this season of the campaign.
Le Pen said Macron did not understand the fears of the middle class. She rejected the idea that Macron, a former investment banker, was a “president of the rich” who could be outspoken and arrogant.
In an interview with France Inter on Friday, Macron dismissed accusations of arrogance as a “political argument.”
Macron caused a stir in France when he ran for office for the first time in 2017, launching his own movement and promising to bring a different kind of policy to the Elysee Palace. But enthusiasm for him as a starter is more limited. Some left-wing voters have expressed disappointment that he has shifted to the right on issues such as immigration and security.
Macron focuses on Le Pen for Russia, Putin joins final debate on French elections
About 3,000 people attended his rally last weekend in the southern city of Marseille, compared to 4,000 who listened to Le Pen in Avignon, a city with a tenth of the population.
Macron was greeted by chants demanding his resignation in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, where he visited an urban renewal project and boxed at a sports club on Thursday.
Last week, hundreds of students occupied university buildings in Paris to protest what they saw as two disappointing elections in the last round.
Macron’s approval rating has been around 45% in recent months. His two most recent predecessors, center-left Francois Hollande and center-right Nicolas Sarkozy, both had lower ratings at the end of their one-year presidency, with Hollande at around 20 per cent and Sarkozy at around 35 per cent. Sarkozy was not re-elected until Hollande ran for a second term.
Addressing the crowd in the medieval market square of Figac on Friday, Macron reiterated that France’s political class had failed voters by promising more support for small towns and rural communities “sometimes neglected for the past 20 years”, he said. .
Although Figac was the center of yellow vest protests over inequality in 2019, the city can be said to encapsulate Macron’s vision of France: rooted in its history, true to its values but ready to take advantage of the growing -globalized world.
Nestled between lush hills, a river and a pilgrimage route, the city has benefited from its proximity to nearby Airbus plants, boosting local companies and the Institute of Technology. The population of Figeac is relatively young and the far right is struggling to break through there.
Middle-aged voters in France, between 30 and 60, seemed most open to Le Pen’s campaign.
While older voters were largely behind other nationalist victories, such as the Trump presidency and Britain’s vote to leave the EU, France’s older generation is a key obstacle to Le Pen’s victory.
Many in this age group vividly remember what the party was like before Le Pen took over from his father, who called Nazi gas chambers a “World War II detail.”
Meanwhile, the youngest voters can choose mostly candidates from the left, but they are also not so concerned about Le Pen.
“There are two conflicting trends: the younger generations are much more concerned about racial issues, gender issues, personal and sexual freedom,” than the older voters, Jardin said. “But they are also less likely to see Marine Le Pen as a far-right racist person than older voters.
Some left-wing voters’ decision to abstain from Sunday’s vote may depend on a risky stake: they do not want Le Pen to become president, but hope a narrower-than-expected election outcome could force Macron to address his concerns. to a greater extent over the next five years.
“If he wins more than expected,” Jarden said, it will make it easier for Macron to “do what he wants.”
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