French election: State of play

With less than three weeks to go until the first round of voting, Emmanuel Macron remains well ahead of the other candidates in the French presidential election polls. Buoyed by a rally-round-the-flag effect after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the incumbent president is almost certain to make the second round (99% on Smarkets).

Who he faces is still up in the air, with four candidates in the mix: Marine Le Pen (79% chance), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (13%), Eric Zemmour (6%) and Valérie Pécresse (3%). The latter two candidates can probably be ruled out, however.

Zemmour faces a huge uphill battle on the far-right against Le Pen, whose poll lead is becoming self-reinforcing: the more she consolidates the far-right vote, the harder it becomes for Zemmour to say he’s the best placed to take on Macron, which causes more of his voters to switch.

With Pécresse, it seems the more voters see, the less they like. You may recall in December, when Pécresse was polling in the high teens, I predicted she would fall to around 10% by the time of the election, which has been borne out by polling. The Republican candidate has been on a downward trajectory since she won the party nomination and it remains to be seen how this would reverse in the final 19 days of the campaign.

Le Pen should be strongly favoured to make the run-off, but Mélenchon also stands a chance. The France Insoumise candidate has fought off a handful of left-of-centre rivals to become the solitary hope of the French left. He is already polling at a campaign high of 14% (4 points behind Le Pen) and has the greatest potential of any of the top five candidates to squeeze the smaller runners. Beneath him lies a well of untapped votes (around 13% in total) from other left-of-centre candidates. With none of these candidates having any chance of making the second round, their voters may be persuaded to back an insurgent Mélenchon.

Though he’s not going to become president, don’t rule out another late surge taking Mélenchon to the run-off.