French left now holding key to fight between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen
The battlefield for the French presidency has shifted to the left as Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen each try to convince voters that they are the lesser of two evils.
The battlefield for the French presidency has shifted to the left as Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen each try to convince voters that they are the lesser of two evils.
The President owed much of his support in the first round of voting on Sunday to centre-right voters who deserted the conservative Valerie Pecresse.
However, Macron also benefited from the backing of moderate left-wing voters who abandoned Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris.
The result is that he has already drained his reservoir of votes from the mainstream left and right blocs, which suffered their gravest rout in the 64 years of the Fifth Republic.
Since Le Pen will pick up most of the votes of Eric Zemmour, her extremist challenger, the fight is on for the 22 per cent of voters who backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, 70, leader of the radical left Unbowed France.
Admitting defeat, Melenchon urged his supporters to give “not one single vote” to Le Pen, but stopped short of suggesting they vote for Macron.
Both Macron and Le Pen must convince these voters, many young and disaffected, that they are more on their side than the other and that they should not help their opponent by abstaining.
Le Pen has been targeting the disaffected left for the past year by putting social concerns – boosting pay and benefits – at the top of her manifesto.
She has blurred the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam parts of her policy, which are abhorrent to the traditional left.
These includes curbs on access for foreigners, including European Union nationals, to housing, jobs, benefits and healthcare.
She also plans a ban on the hijab in public.
Le Pen will crank up the moderate, friendly persona that she has cultivated since losing to Macron in 2017 to convince uncertain voters that she is not a threat, while claiming her manifesto is realistic.
She owed her heavy defeat in the 2017 run-off in part to the way Macron exposed her poor grasp of facts and figures in their television debate and she is on the defensive again.
Money to pay for tax cuts and pay rises will come from savings in of benefits for immigrants and foreigners and from a crackdown on fraud, she says. Her debate with Macron, in the days before the April 24 run-off, will be crucial for her credibility.
Le Pen is working hard to amplify what she claims she shares with the anti-Macron left – the sense of being an underdog and contempt for a president they regard as out of touch.
Both Le Pen and Melenchon campaigned as champions of “the people” against the elite, personified by Macron.
To shore up his narrow lead, Macron must thwart his rival’s allure by giving a positive feel to his campaign and by making belated contact with “the people below”, as sociologists call them.
At the same time, he will play up what he calls the dangerous Le Pen manifesto and the prospect of a presidency that would make France an outcast in Europe and an ally of Russia.
The Times
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