Emmanuel Macron faces still resistance to his bid to retain his Prime Minister position in France thanks largely to his own inability to come across as authentic and non-creepy when addressing the public. As the election ears, polls are showing Macron’s once 32-point-lead over the far right candidate Marine Le Pen has been reduced to 5 to 6 points.
Macron Lack of Likeability Could Mean Le Pen Wins France’s Presidential Election
From foreignpolicy.com
2022-04-07 19:22:24
Excerpt:
Five years ago, when I was in France on the eve of the presidential election, I found a country in the grip of the momentous. Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old Napoleon in a navy suit, had come from out of nowhere with his message of national renewal through liberal reform. His chief adversary, Marine Le Pen of the extreme-right National Front, seemed to pose a direct threat to France’s principles of secularism and tolerance. Right-wing populism, storming across the West, had already registered shocking victories in the form of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Millions of French citizens who did not believe in Macron’s market-based politics, including my own social democratic friends, nevertheless voted for him in order to save French democracy. Macron’s thumping victory over Le Pen, by 32 percentage points, felt like an almost heroic reaffirmation of French republicanism.
I was in Paris again last month, and with the first-round vote approaching April 10 the mood was distinctly anti-climactic. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Macron’s showy if hollow efforts to mediate the crisis, had pushed the generally unpopular president’s approval ratings up to the low 40s, and his new challenger on the far-right, the flamboyantly xenophobic and Russophile Éric Zemmour, had flatlined. No serious challenger had emerged to Macron’s left. The president appeared to be coasting to victory without even bothering to campaign. Macron’s reelection would confirm hopes that the worst was over—at least in Western Europe. The election of Social Democrat Olaf Scholz as German chancellor, as well as the continued popularity of the technocrat economist Mario Draghi in Italy, seems to argue that the tide of illiberal populism that began with the 2015 refugee crisis has crested.
That’s if Macron wins. Just in the last week, the mood has shifted yet again. Macron’s lead over a suddenly resurgent Le Pen has shrunk to 5 or 6 percentage…
