Macron before his most uncertain challenge with the far-right Le Pen

Like five years ago Emmanuel Macron part as favorite to prevail in the second round of the presidential elections french. But if his victory was unquestionable in 2017, the advance of the far-right Marine LePen tinges with some uncertainty in the duel at the polls this Sunday.

LOOK: Marine Le Pen rejects that there is a genocide in Ukraine

France is awaiting that face-to-face, as is Europe, which in case of surprise would be deprived of one of its main supporters and would experience the coming to power of a Eurosceptic at the head of its second economy and one of its engines along with Germany.

The verdict is in the hands of almost 49 million French people at the end of the most indifferent campaign, the least passionate, the one that has aroused the least interest in recent years, which predicts an abstention figure that will rub shoulders with the highest in the history.

LOOK: Stop Immigration, Fight Islam, Retire at 60: The 13 Main Points of Marine Le Pen’s Program

The spotlights will be on elections that start with a clear favorite but not without suspense.

Although all the polls predict a victory for Macron, never before have they placed a candidate from the extreme right so close to victory.

In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front, fell below a fifth of the votes with 5.5 million votes and fifteen years later his daughter Marine, who has been washing the face of the party for years, surpassed the third of the ballots and the 10 million supports.

If the polls are not mistaken, this Sunday it will exceed 40% and add about 6 million voters to those of five years ago.

The heiress of the extreme right has achieved a good part of her bet, turning her movement into one more party, filing down the rejections as much as possible, rounding off the most annoying angles and placing herself at the gates of power.

FROM BREXIT TO TRUMP

Some polls place him at the limits of the margin of error, within reach of a major surprise that some compare to the one that took place in the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom in 2015 or the election of Donald Trump in the United States the following year.

As then, no poll predicted it, but it happened, which justifies Macron’s calls to avoid overconfidence.

The president has seen how the re-election, which seemed like an almost closed matter a month ago, has forced him to go down to the electoral arena and fight with all his weapons.

Five years marked by the protests of the yellow vests, the scratches of the pandemic and inflation fueled by the consequences of the war in Ukraine have mitigated its economic achievements and have given life to its rival.

The rejection of the extreme right is no longer a guarantee of success because a large part of the electorate has lost its fear of it and the calls of the other parties to block its coming to power are more lukewarm than in the past.

ALL WEAPONS

Engaged in Ukraine’s diplomatic front during the first round, Macron benefited from the tailwind of his statesmanlike stature to come out on top with 27.8% of the vote, more than four points ahead of Le Pen.

Threatened, the president went down to the electoral arena and toured towns and cities with two messages under his arm: on the one hand, remember the true face of the extreme right, anti-Semitic and pro-Russian. On the other, winking at the almost eight million voters who bet on the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round.

For them, he has softened his pension reform and has put ecology at the center of his project, which, according to polls, has allowed him to convince two out of five.

The same procession to which Le Pen, self-proclaimed spokesperson for the people, candidate for purchasing power and defender of the causes of the most disadvantaged, has subjected them, a message that has permeated the lower layers of society and 20% of Mélenchon’s electorate.

The far-right has emphasized the rejection that Macron arouses, in his “arrogance” and the “arrogance” with which he addresses the French, the president of the elites, away from the people, the trick with which he hopes to awaken the abstentionists who are the only ones who can make him star in a huge electoral surprise.

Source: Elcomercio

Deshawn