the announced duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will take place

It was the announced duel and it is indeed the duel that will take place: Marine Le Pen against Emmanuel Macron, as in 2017. The poster therefore remains the same, but the protagonists have changed a lot and do not approach the campaign of the second round in the same way.

Return to the field

Emmanuel Macron returns to the field this morning in the mining basin, in Hauts-de-France where his opponent is ahead of him, he who in 2017 had taken his time before restarting. Objective: to chain the movements and move up a gear after a lackluster entry into the campaign. The lessons of the previous presidential election have been learned.

On the side of Marine Le Pen too, the candidate has already planned two meetings, but above all to take a break to prepare for the debate between the two rounds and not to repeat a poor performance like that of 2017 which had disqualified her. And each of the two candidates will go fishing for the votes of the losers of the first round.

A second round that is not played in advance

Some candidates immediately set the tone: Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Valérie Pécresse and even Fabien Roussel called for a vote for Macron, when Eric Zemmour and Nicolas Dupont Aignan came out in favor of Marine Le Pen. The third man in this election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, took advantage of the useful vote of voters who took note of the fact that the ecologist Yannick Jadot, like the socialist Anne Hidalgo, were not in the game. The outcome of the ballot on April 24 will largely depend on the choice of voters for Jean-Luc Mélenchon who said: “ Not a voice for Marine Le Pen “, but without calling to vote Macron. What will the 20% of voters who had chosen the Insoumis do: this will be one of the keys to a second round which is not decided in advance.

Analysis. With three candidates above 20%: Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and Jean Luc Mélenchon, three very distinct poles are being created. For Erwan Lestrohan, director of studies at the Odoxa polling institute, “ it is really very impressive. It’s really an election that confirms the political recomposition that we observed in 2017. Today, Valérie Pécresse only captures the vote of a third of François Fillon’s voters in 2017 and less than half of the vote of supporters The Republicans. Ditto for Anne Hidalgo who barely captures half of the vote of PS supporters. We are at very low levels. And I think that these parties also pay for the difficulty, given that they are old, in making their electoral offer visible. Finally, recent parties such as France insoumise, the Republic in March, or even Europe Ecologie-Les Verts have a political offer that is better identified and better perceived by voters since we see for Les Républicains that, with the score of Valérie Pécresse today is that his electorate really seems to have been absorbed by Emmanuel Macron, who achieves very high scores with the oldest French people, with the wealthiest French people, with executives who were also electoral drivers Republicans “.

The collapse of traditional parties

” We really havecontinues Erwan Lestrohan, France, which is sheltered from the crisis, which voted for Emmanuel Macron with very high levels, a vote among those aged 65 and over, among the inhabitants of metropolitan areas, in the wealthiest households, among retirees , among executives. That is really this France sheltered from the crisis which voted for Emmanuel Macron. Then a fragile France voted for Marine Le Pen, it is the France of 25-64 year olds, working people, rural communities, small towns, the most modest households, employees, workers, job seekers . Therefore, a population may be more likely to be weakened by the context of the economic crisis. And a third France that we found in these big electoral poles observed during this first round, which votes for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is France on the left: 36% of 18-25 year olds voted for him. It’s a France that is young, it’s a France that includes public employees. They are 26.4 to have voted for the rebellious leader. And we see that the left, as a whole, has turned to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which was quite unexpected. And 36% of the Socialist Party, for example, voted for Jean-luc Mélenchon, as did 25% of supporters of Europe Ecology – the Greens. So we see that there was a useful vote and a mobilization of the left behind the candidate of France insubordinate “.

Facing the RN, will there be a republican front?

“ The Republican front is very interesting, because we can wonder if 2022 is the presidential election that will shake this electoral principle, especially on the left.reports the director of studies at the Odoxa Survey Institute. We asked the French today if the second round of the presidential election opposed Emmanuel Macron to Marine Le Pen, what would be your attitude? And we have 4 out of 10 French people who say: “I will vote for one of these candidates because I want to support him”, but we have 21% of French people who tell us that they will vote to block Marine Le Pen. It is almost the same proportion as those who will vote to block Emmanuel Macron, 18%. So we see that there is no additional vote to block Marine Le Pen compared to the Emmanuel Macron dam. It is true that there is a desire to block Emmanuel Macron which is also very important in the population. And that’s what the challenge is going to be between the two rounds, it’s really to see to what extent the mobilization, either against one or against the other, either for one or for the other, will lead the candidates to use their vote reserve whereas today, they appear at fairly close levels on the evening of the first round “, concludes Erwan Lestrohan.

► Read also : Presidential 2022: a second Macron-Le Pen duel very different from the first