Marine Le Pen and her deputy Jordan Bardella have « firmly established dominance » over the field of prospective candidates to replace Macron.
Marine Le Pen and her National Rally deputy Jordan Bardella have “firmly established dominance” over the field of prospective candidates to replace French President Emmanuel Macron, according to the latest survey from Ifop.
While uncertainty reigns over the next presidential election in France, with it being unclear if President Macron will last till the end of his second and final term, and whether the current frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, will legally be permitted to run or not, it does appear to be clear that the populist National Rally party has a clear edge over Macron’s neo-liberal faction and those on the left.
A survey of voters by the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop), which analysed six different likely fields of candidates, found that in all scenarios, three-time candidate Le Pen or her 30-year-old deputy Jordan Bardella are the clear frontrunners, with between 33 and 35 per cent of the vote. This would provide a lead of between 17 and 20 points over their next closest competitors, according to Le Figaro.
Ifop said that the results highlighted “a reconfiguration of electoral power dynamics, with a clear weakening of figures from the central bloc and a now firmly established dominance of the National Rally.”
Although Le Pen is the clear choice of the National Rally for the election, the survey was forced to include results for Bardella as well, given that he has become the party’s “Plan B”, after Le Pen was banned from standing for any office in March by a Paris court over alleged misappropriation of EU funds.
