Voter snub for Macron, Le Pen on jobs
Print Edition
A week before a decisive second round in France’s presidential election, many voters are sceptical that either of the two candidates can solve chronic unemployment or tackle security concerns, a poll published yesterday found.
The Ifop survey for the Journal du Dimanche highlights two key battlegrounds as centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen enter a final week of campaigning, expected to focus on France’s economy and borders.
Polls predict Macron, a former economy minister, will win the May 7 runoff with about 59-60 percent. But the momentum has recently been with Le Pen, who has clawed back about 5 percentage points over the past week.
According to the Ifop poll, 45 percent of voters believe the two finalists would not put an end to unemployment, which has for years stood close to 10 percent. And 36 percent say neither candidate is able to protect France from attacks.
France has been under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks mostly perpetrated by young men who grew up in France and Belgium. More than 230 people have been killed in the past two years.
Days before the April 23 first round, a French policeman was shot dead and two others hurt in Paris in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
The outcome of the runoff will depend to a large extent on floating voters and potentially high levels of abstention.
In the first round, 22.2 percent of voters abstained: The highest percentage since 2002 when Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, surged into the second round only to be defeated overwhelmingly by conservative Jacques Chirac.
If turnout is low in the second round, analysts say Macron may struggle to reproduce the same broad movement against the National Front candidate, citing his mainly free-market policies at a time when anti-establishment feeling has been on the rise.
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