France Set for Nail Biting Election Contest

With the dust settling on the first round of voting in the French presidential election, what do the results tell us?

Despite accusations of being somewhat aloof and arrogant, President Emmanuel Macron has seen his share of the vote increase from 2017 from 24.01% to 27.8%.

The extreme ends of French politics are getting stronger with the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, the far left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Eric Zemmour another far right candidate all coming second, third and fourth respectively in the first round of voting. Both Le Pen and Mélenchon saw their vote share increase compared to the first round of voting in 2017.

The fall of the once leading parties in France is all but complete with the Republican party’s candidate, Valérie Pécresse and Socialist party candidate, Anne Hidalgo securing a combined share of the vote of less than 7%.

France will now see two weeks of frantic campaigning between Macron and Le Pen ahead of the second and final round of voting on 24th April which will decide who resides in the Élysée Palace over the next five years.

In 2017 Marcon won the head to head convincingly, by 66.10% of the vote compared to 33.90% for Le Pen. But with Marcon no longer the fresh, new thing on the block, things are set to be much closer this time around with one poll suggesting that at present, in the head to head battle, Marcon is on 51% with Le Pen on 49%.

 

 

 

   

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