Could Marine Le Pen Win the French Presidency?

 For nationalists across Europe the problems the European Union has encountered in securing sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccines will provide a political moment to exploit. It will embolden those who feel that nation states should take care of their own affairs.

The move will play especially into the hands of Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Rally, formally the National Front. It comes on the back of a faulting response by the Government of President Emmanuel Macron to the pandemic. As far back as October one poll found that 61% of those surveyed in France felt he had not handled the pandemic well.

Add to that the recent news that police in France have detained seven people in connection with the beheading in October of teacher Samuel Paty by Abdoullakh Anzorov after Patry showed caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed during a class debate on free expression and the terrain could hardly be better for Le Pen.  Perhaps not surprisingly she has now proposed banning the wearing of the hijab in public.

So far solace has been found that despite Le Pen’s attempts to soften the image of her party it has not translated into a serious threat in a Presidential election. Although her successful effort to get through to the second round of voting in the 2017 election caused many to worry, in the end, Macron won fairly clearly, securing around 66% of the votes cast compared to Le Pen on 34%.

But with France due to go the polls in 15 months’ time in a presidential election, concerns are beginning to grow that this time things might not be so conclusive. According to polling by Harris Interactive, if the final-round of voting in the election were held today, Le Pen would secure 48% of the vote, with Macron re-elected on 52%.

Explaining the reasons for the increased support for Le Pen, Charles Bremner, Paris correspondent for The Times has noted that her increasing popularity, “is largely down to a shift towards her by supporters of the mainstream conservative Republicans party.”

For his part, commenting on the results, Jean-Yves Camus, a French political scientist specialising in the far right has noted that whilst it is “too early to take the polls at face value”, it never the less remains the highest that Le Pen has ever been in the polls.

All that said, the narrowness of the poll has led inevitably to questions about whether next year Le Pen could actually secure the keys to the Élysée Palace.

Writing in the Spectator, John Keiger a professor of French history at the University of Cambridge and former research director of its politics department has warned against getting too carried away at this stage.

Writing of Le Pen’s candidacy to become President having hit a “glass ceiling” Keiger explains that firstly, in order to win the second round of voting, she would need to “overcome the moral reluctance of voters outside her core electorate” to vote for her. Whilst he notes that “opinion surveys suggest moral reticence is diminishing” he observes that “even her niece Marion Maréchal (Le Pen) says she will not win in 2022.”

Keiger goes on to note that, secondly, “Marine Le Pen’s calamitous performance against Macron in the pre-second round television debate — which she acknowledges — raised doubts about her competence in voters’ minds, and within the party too.” He warns also that the campaign personnel within Le Pen’s party “lack experience.”

So could Le Pen with the presidency? At this stage it is too early to say, but this latest poll will prove, if he did not already know it, that President Macron has his work cut out if he is to secure a second term in office.