after a tough debate, return to the field for Macron and Le Pen

In the aftermath of a tough debate, the two presidential finalists Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will mobilize their troops on Thursday and try to convince the undecided for the penultimate day of the campaign.

Without waiting for the fallout from their nearly three-hour televised duel, the two rivals chose to travel to popular regions – Seine-Saint-Denis and Hauts-de-France – to better respond to the number one concern of the French, the purchasing power, particularly affected by the repercussions of the war in Ukraine on energy and food prices.

A theme on which they clashed during the debate on Wednesday, the president-candidate defending the current “shield” and his “food voucher” project, the second advocating a reduction in VAT.

In the home stretch, the president-candidate is widening the gap in the polls, being given the winner in a range ranging from 54 to 56.5% of voting intentions against 43.5 to 46% for Marine Le Pen. A smaller gap than in 2017, however, the candidate “neither right nor left” then won the presidential battle with 66.1% of the vote.

Has the debate moved the lines? First elements of response with the opinion polls on Thursday and Friday before the verdict on Sunday evening.

– Courted rebels –

Emmanuel Macron will go to Saint-Denis at the beginning of the afternoon for a trip devoted to the problem of “unsanitary housing and urban renewal” in the poorest department of the metropolis.

Seine-Saint-Denis, which recorded the highest abstention rate in mainland France on April 10, placed the candidate of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon well ahead (49.09%) ahead of Emmanuel Macron ( 20.27%).

The voters of leader LFI, who came in third place with nearly 22% nationally, are particularly courted by the two finalists. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who called not to give “a voice to Mrs. Le Pen”, hoping for a “third round” in the legislative elections which would propel him “Prime Minister”.

The far-right candidate is expected in Hauts-de-France, where she came first in the first round in the five departments, well behind Emmanuel Macron.

With a stop at midday in Roye (Somme), a town of nearly 6,000 inhabitants, it will hold its last campaign meeting in the early evening in Arras, the prefecture of Pas-de-Calais. A department which largely voted for it in the first round even if it was the outgoing president who won first place in the capital.

In the second poorest region of metropolitan France, she will decline in particular her proposals on purchasing power, which she has made the priority axis of her campaign.

According to an Ipsos/Sopra Steria poll carried out among some 12,000 people, purchasing power comes largely in the lead (65%) for those who would vote for Marine Le Pen, followed by immigration (53%), delinquency (32% ) and pensions (30%).

– “Split” –

First position also for purchasing power among voters who would vote for Emmanuel Macron but a notch below (49%), almost on a par with the war in Ukraine (44%). Then follow the environment (36%) and the health system (32%).

“The fact remains that there is not one Melenchonist electorate but two”, according to this vast survey, “those who vote for Macron are more feminine, younger, less popular, more qualified, more urban and clearly more on the left than those who vote for Le Pen”

Mr. Mélenchon’s voters will therefore play a “crucial role in the final balance of power, but they are themselves plural… and deeply divided, not to say torn”.

Divided, the extreme right, which gathered a third of the votes in the first round, is also divided. Eric Zemmour’s call for a “grand coalition of rights and all patriots” to “build a majority” in the June legislative elections was deemed premature and “too vague” by the National Rally.

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