Why pro-Putin Le Pen could win French presidential election

By Andrew Hammond

Far-right, pro-Russia and anti-NATO leader Marine Le Pen emerged in a strong second place on Sunday and will face off against incumbent Emmanuel Macron for the French presidency on April 24 in what could be a nailbiter election.

While Macron emerged in first place on Sunday with around 28 percent of the vote, it wasn't the overwhelming victory that polls as late as last month projected. Le Pen scored her highest percentage of the vote among any of the three presidential campaigns she has been involved in, with approximately 23.5 percent.

It is almost certain that Macron won't win close to the 66 percent of the second-round vote he secured in 2017. Indeed, a poll on Sunday night from Ifop Fiducial indicated that the second round ballot could be a lot closer, with a 51-49 percent win for Macron. This figure is similar to a Harris poll last week that put Macron at 51.5 percent to Le Pen's 48.5 percent.

To be sure, Macron remains the favorite to beat her in the second-round, two-way run-off, and to become the first re-elected president for some two decades. But French politics is volatile, even without the impact of the Ukraine conflict.

Support for the far right in Sunday's first round was at its highest point yet: Le Pen and her extreme-right rival Eric Zemmour won around 33 percent of support between them. It seems likely that most of Zemmour's voters will opt for Le Pen in two weeks.

Macron has been endorsed by the center-left Socialists, who secured a historic low of 2 percent on Sunday, and the center-right Republicans, who won only 5 percent too.

What will now help determine the outcome of the April 24 ballot is where the supporters of hard-leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon go. He secured around 20 percent of the vote and, while he has urged his supporters not to vote for Le Pen, he stopped short of endorsing Macron.

So, while Macron may appear in the home straight, French politics may still have a surprise or two in store in the next two weeks. The unusual political times are highlighted by the fact that, with Macron and Le Pen facing off against each other, this election is only the second time in the country's modern history that neither of the parties of the center-right Republicans or center-left Socialists, which have governed for almost all of the post-war era, have qualified for the final round.

Further unexpected twists and turns cannot be ruled out, especially in a context of distrust of the political class, and of rising economic inequality for many. Small wonder that financial markets have been jittery.

So, with Europe in its most volatile period in years ― if not decades ― post-Ukraine invasion, Macron is by no means guaranteed re-election. There remains widespread discontent against the wealthy urban elite and establishment, including by the yellow-vest protests, fueled by financial difficulties in rural or peripheral urban areas, which will likely now be intensified following the sanctions against Russia, and significantly higher gas, electricity and food prices are likely.

Le Pen will seek to double down now on tapping into this economic pain, including by proposing cutting taxes on fuel, presenting herself as an anti-globalization champion, including opposition to international trade and NATO. Her wider platform is centered on an anti-immigration project to prioritize native French people over non-French for housing, jobs and benefits, and to ban the Muslim headscarf from all public spaces.

The fact that she did so well on Sunday will dismay many in France ― as well as internationally too. Should she pull off a victory in two weeks, it would be a severe blow for Brussels, given her well-publicized euroskepticism and the fact that ― alongside Germany ― the country has traditionally been the "twin engine" of EU integration.

Macron will hope to recapture the mood of last month when he was surging in the polls, styling himself as a war-time leader following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The fact that he slipped in opinion surveys since then has been attributed to him devoting so much time to diplomatic talks with world leaders.

Aware of this critique, he is going after Le Pen hard in the last phase of the campaign, including on Russia, and she has had to distance herself from President Vladimir Putin. His main goal, now that he has filled the vacuum of power in the political center ground created by the collapse in support for the Socialists and Republicans, will be to make a pitch for the 26 percent of voters who abstained, plus other non-mainstream voters, especially the approximately 20 percent who voted for Melenchon.

Nevertheless, markets will continue to be on edge for another two weeks as Macron and Le Pen seek to build broader coalitions of voters in their one-on-one standoff. The yield on France's 10-year bonds rose to a seven-year high last week on concerns Le Pen may take power in the middle of the Ukraine war.

Taken together, such a possibility would make for a highly unpredictable finish to the campaign. While Macron has an edge, his lead is not insurmountable in what is a shifting sands socio-economic context.

Andrew Hammond ((andrewkorea@outlook.com) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.