PARIS — French polling agencies projected Sunday that President Emmanuel Macron and far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen are heading for another winner-takes-all runoff in the country’s presidential election, with their fierce political rivalry and sharply opposing visions pulling clear of 10 other candidates in the crowded first round of voting.
If confirmed by official vote counts later Sunday night, the pollsters’ initial projections mean France is teeing up for a repeat of the 2017 head-to-head contest that made Macron France’s youngest-ever president — but there is no guarantee this time that the outcome will be the same.
Le Pen this time tapped into the foremost issue on many French voters’ minds: the costs for food, gas and heating that have soared amid the disruptions of war in Ukraine and the economic repercussions of Western sanctions on Russia.
The French election result will have wide international influence as Europe struggles to contain the havoc wreaked by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Macron has strongly backed European Union sanctions on Russia while Le Pen has worried publicly about their impact on French living standards. Macron also is a firm supporter of NATO and of close collaboration among the European Union’s 27 members.
Macron, a 44-year-old political centrist, won by a landslide five years ago but he is bracing for a far tougher runoff battle on April 24 against his 53-year-old political nemesis. Le Pen is promising seismic shifts for France — both domestically and internationally — if elected as the country’s first woman president, and appears closer than ever to have a chance of reaching the presidential Elysee Palace.
The projections showed both Macron and Le Pen on course to improve on their 2017 first-round showings, highlighting how French politics have become increasingly polarized. Macron was expected to capture a sizeable first-round lead of around 28% support, ahead of Le Pen’s projected 23%-to-24% of the vote.
The projections showed hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon — one of half a dozen candidates on the left — finishing out of the runoff in third place, with about 20% support.
Macron for months looked like a shoo-in to become France’s first president in 20 years to win a second term. But National Rally leader Le Pen ate into his polling lead in the campaign’s closing stages, as the pain of inflation became a dominant election theme for many low-income voters.
“The French people honored me by qualifying me for the second round,” Le Pen said Sunday night as she thanked her supporters and called on those who didn’t vote for Macron to back her in round two.
Le Pen seemed to target Melechon’s left-wing supporters in particular by promising “social justice” and fixes for “a France torn apart.” Her supporters celebrated with champagne and interrupted her speech with chants of “We’re going to win!”
Yet some of her defeated rivals were so alarmed by the possibility of Le Pen beating Macron in the presidential runoff that they urged their supporters Sunday to shift their second-round votes to the incumbent. Melenchon, addressing supporters who sometimes shed tears, repeated three times that Le Pen shouldn’t get “one single vote.”
Describing herself as “profoundly worried,” defeated conservative candidate Valerie Pecresse warned of “the chaos that would ensue” if Le Pen was elected, saying the far-right leader has never been so close to power. Pecresse said she would vote for Macron in the runoff.
Pollsters suggest that just a few percentage points could separate the familiar foes in France’s second-round vote, setting setting up a runoff campaign likely to be far more confrontational than round one, which was largely overshadowed by the war in Ukraine.
After Le Pen dropped the blue envelope containing her choice into a ballot box in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, she said “given the situation in the country and in the world,” Sunday’s election outcome could determine “not only the next five years, but probably the next 50 years” in France.
In the 27-member EU, only France has a nuclear arsenal and a U.N. Security Council veto.
To beat Le Pen in the runoff, Macron must pick apart her years-long rebranding effort to make herself seem less extreme, a makeover that has even highlighted her love of cats. Macron has accused Le Pen of pushing an extremist manifesto of racist, ruinous policies. Le Pen wants to ban Muslim headscarves in French streets and halal and kosher butchers, and drastically reduce immigration from outside Europe.
Her softer image won over some voters but has made others even more suspicious.
Yves Maillot, a retired engineer, said he voted for Macron only to counterbalance Le Pen. He said he fears that her long-standing hostility to the EU could see her try to take France out of the bloc, even though she’s dropped that from her manifesto.
“I don’t think she’s changed at all,” he said. “It’s the same thing, but with cats.”
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Elaine Ganley, Sylvie Corbet and Patrick Hermansen in Paris contributed
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