Could Marine Le Pen win the French elections?
What is happening?
What are the facts?
Perspective
- Marine Le Pen gained ground in first round of presidential elections on Sunday.
- The far-right candidate will face President Macron for the top job.
- They battled it out five years ago, but results suggest Macron is now facing a tougher fight.
- Final vote on 24 April.
- Le Pen is a far-right candidate, President Macron is a centrist.
Macron must work hard
France24 writes Macron goes into the April 24 run-off with a starkly diminished reservoir of votes in what large swaths of the country have come to see as a choice of “the lesser of two evils”.
Media Bias
“Macron destroyed the left-right divide”
Aljazeera says Virginie Martin, a research professor at Kedge Business School, said the runoff is a consequence of an increasingly polarised France, with each of the top two candidates presenting two different images of society.
Media Bias
"A profound reconfiguration"
The Conversation says The momentum of the strategic vote, which picked up barely a month before the first round, appears to confirm the restructuring of the French political field around three major poles dating back to the 2017 election.
Media Bias
Rise in far right
ABC says the far-right insurgent reshaping the race for the French presidency, adding "their society is cracking apart".
