A survey released by a Brazilian-based firm this week has revealed that populist leader Marine Le Pen may be pulling ahead of President Emmanuel Macron as France votes in the first round of its presidential elections this weekend.
The poll, which is part of a broader survey around the French presidential elections, was released Thursday by the Brazil-based firm Atlas Intelligence and claims that in a second-round run-off vote, Marine Le Pen has pulled ahead of President Macron.
While the survey expects President Macron to win the first round of voting this weekend with at least 27.8 per cent of the vote, with Ms Le Pen in second with 21.3 per cent, the latter pulls ahead of Macron in a second-round vote with 41.4 per cent of the vote to 40.8 for Macron
18 per cent say they are either undecided or do not intend to cast a ballot.
In a potential second round against conservative writer and pundit Eric Zemmour, centre-right candidate Valérie Pécresse, or far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, Macron would win decisively, according to the polling, largely due to the number of people who would either not vote, would leave their ballot blank, or be unsure of who to vote for.
Le Pen also scored the lowest in terms of negative voter attitudes among the candidates, with 54.5 per cent viewing her in a negative light compared to 55.8 per cent for President Macron.
A total of 68.8 per cent said they had a negative view of Eric Zemmour, with Paris’s leftist mayor Anne Hidalgo having an even worse score of 69.5 per cent viewing her negatively.
The polling coincides with more recent opinion polls that show Le Pen gaining ground on President Macron, who has avoided participating in any debates between the presidential candidates going into the election this weekend.
Political academic Nicolas Tenzer acknowledged that a Le Pen victory could be possible, saying: “With a high abstention rate, which is possible, and the level of hatred toward the president among some people, there could be a real surprise,” and added, “The idea that Le Pen wins is not impossible.”
In the final days leading up to the election, both Le Pen and Zemmour highlighted the death of Jewish man Jeremy Cohen, who was hit by a tram and died in February in the no-go Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis.
Initially thought to have been an accident, footage later emerged showing Cohen being chased and beaten by a mob of people just prior to this death, raising questions of whether or not his death was a result of him fleeing an anti-Semitic attack.
“The images of the death of Jeremy Cohen are chilling. The death of yet another of our children and the deafening silence on the facts for two months revolt me. Did he die to escape scum? Did he die because he was a Jew? Why is this case hushed up?” Zemmour said this week.
“At the end of February, Jérémy Cohen was assassinated, crushed under a tram in his flight following the beating by a gang. What was presented as an accident could be an anti-Semitic murder. How to explain the silence on this affair and its motivations?” Le Pen said, calling for a parlaimentry inquiry into the incident.
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