like a buoyant wind for Marine Le Pen

Cold spell on France on Friday but not, it seems, for Marine Le Pen: a week or so before the ballot, the far-right candidate comes to tickle the presidential favorite Emmanuel Macron, whose camp cries out the “deception”.

The candidate, who is running for the third time in the presidential election, declared herself “serene”, affirming “to feel on the ground a great dynamic, a hope which has risen at the end of the campaign”.

The question of a possible victory for the candidate of the RN, a party inherited from the hated former National Front, electrifies a campaign marked by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, against a backdrop of fears of record abstention on 10 April.

The polls are just a snapshot at a time, but they’ve been tracking and looking alike for several months, giving Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen the second round, for a 2017 second leg.

However, with a gap that is closing between the youngest president of the Fifth Republic, a candidate who wants to be “at the same time” left and right. And the candidate of a far-right party attracting a popular electorate and which strives to smooth its image.

– “Chat” –

On the sidelines of a trip to the Rungis wholesale market (Val-de-Marne) to oppose the “France of morning workers” to that of “assisted and profiteers”, the other far-right candidate Eric Zemmour accused the media of having shown “benevolence” and “complacency” with his rival Marine Le Pen.

The number one concern of the French, purchasing power is at the heart of this campaign, an even more topical theme with the repercussions of the war in Ukraine which have caused the prices of energy and cereals to soar.

In the east of the country on Friday, on lands which are rather favorable to her, Marine Le Pen called on the left and the right “patriots” to join her, during a public meeting in Stiring-Wendel (Moselle). She had previously wandered the streets of the small town of Haguenau (Bas-Rhin).

She says she made the choice of “proximity” against “gigantism”, while Emmanuel Macron is preparing a big meeting on Saturday near Paris.

The president-candidate received Friday at the Elysée the mayor of the Ukrainian city of Melitopol and again spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The defense of purchasing power, as well as security, were also on the menu of the right-wing candidate Valérie Pécresse, neck and neck with the former polemicist around 10% of the voting intentions.

Always firm on the sovereign, she castigated Emmanuel Macron “the candidate of gossip” on security, Friday in Rognac (Bouches-du-Rhône), the day after a night visit to the northern districts of Marseille.

In front of her troops in the evening in Saint-Raphaël (Var), she insisted on wanting to “make the polls lie”.

– “Deception” –

Prime Minister Jean Castex, as a support for the president-candidate, went to the south-east, to Carpentras (Vaucluse), on lands where the far right thrives.

The presidential “is not played” and “everyone must mobilize” because the election of Marine Le Pen would be a “catastrophe”, he insisted. According to him, the far-right candidate “makes believe that she has changed, that she has become more flexible, more centrist almost, but this is a sham. She has not changed”.

In a context of galloping inflation, the majority also insists on the shock absorbers put in place by the executive, including this Friday with the entry into force of the rebate of at least 15 cents per liter of fuel.

As for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he seems to consolidate his third place (15%), cherishing the hope of a “republican front” blocking the far right and which would carry him to the second round.

Visiting the Atlantic coast in Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, socialist Anne Hidalgo deplored on LCI “a totally exploded political landscape” which could play into the hands of the far right.

She, who received the support of former Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, and remains credited with around 2% of the voting intentions, also assured that the party would “recover” from the election, while recognizing that it will be necessary to “open up” and engage in “work” for reconstruction.

On April 1, the communist candidate Fabien Roussel for his part chose “the hunt for big fish”. In front of the premises of the Financial Markets Authority in Paris, he denounced “tax evasion” and “tax optimization”.

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