Presidential: what are the lessons of the latest polls?

There is total uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential election. If outgoing President Emmanuel Macron, who has still not declared his candidacy, is in pole position in all the polls, qualification for the second round is played out between several candidates, from Éric Zemmour to Valérie Pécresse via Marine Le Pen . For the editorialist Nicolas Beytout, these polls give the image of a suspenseful election less than 50 days from the first round, and reveal that the gaps between the candidates can still decrease.

The polls give a much more unexpected provisional ranking than what was pre-sold to us just a few weeks ago. Let us remember, for years, the polls have given us the image of a slow march towards a Macron-Le Pen confrontation in the second round, and for years, we have understood, by questioning the French, that a majority of between them didn’t fancy a re-release of the 2017 script. Well, the more the polls grow, the more that certainty evaporates.

A slight drop in the polls for Emmanuel Macron

One certainty for the moment: Emmanuel Macron is systematically at the top of the voting intentions. The outgoing president is given the winner in all cases in the second round. But this photograph deserves to be nuanced. First, because the head of state has still not entered the campaign. However, there is a real risk for him that, having become a candidate and having lost his armor as President of the Republic, he will mark the blow in the polls. And then, we can already see that his lead is not so solid: for the first time in three weeks, the daily Ifop poll, which measures and compares the evolution of public opinion every day, places Emmanuel Macron below the 25% mark (at 24.5%).

It’s not so much this little symbol, this little threshold crossing that counts, but the trend observed for a week: the head of state has lost 1.5 points, and that’s a lot. Because what must be analyzed when talking about polls is of course the figures in absolute value, but it is also the trend over several days. This is how we can detect a dynamic (or not) either upwards or, of course, downwards. What this poll says is that there is a bearish momentum from Emmanuel Macron. With 8, 9, 10 more points, he still remains far ahead of his opponents, but nothing is done.

Marine Le Pen contains Éric Zemmour’s push

We see a lot of things that concern the dynamics at work among the pursuers of the tenant of the Élysée. This same Ifop opinion poll, and another OpinionWay poll, also carried out every day, show that Marine Le Pen has so far managed to resist Eric Zemmour’s push. In these two polls, she indeed takes over the leadership of the chasing pack (with between a half-point and three points ahead).

So, of course, at half a point, we remain within the margin of error, but these scores show that the boss of the National Rally does indeed have a solid base of voters, which is around 16-18%, which is rather insensitive to the slumps in his campaign, which is sure of his vote and which can give him access to the second round.

Alongside or behind her, there are also other notable dynamics: Eric Zemmour, who is leading an effective campaign, who has made a remarkable comeback, but who seems to be stalling at around 15-16%. And then Valérie Pécresse who, after having taken advantage of her victory in the primary, had found herself on a toboggan since her failed big meeting in Paris, but who now limits the breakage and also seems to have found her base. These three candidates can still hope to qualify for the second round.

The interesting dynamics of Mélenchon and Roussel

If we look for the dynamics in the polls, it is that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon that strikes the most, with (to a lesser extent) that of the communist Fabien Roussel. The candidate of La France insoumise continues to nibble on the ground. And as the French place the issue of purchasing power very high in their concerns, he can ride the wave.

We also know that candidates will have to give up, like Christiane Taubira, whose voters could preferably return to Yannick Jadot and give him (finally) the opportunity to create an ascending current. Everything can still move. That’s what election campaigns are for: making the candidates and their proposals known to all French people, but also creating a movement, a dynamic (I’ll come back to this). This is always how electoral victories are built.