UNPREDICTABLE RACE: Four candidates are in contention to win one of the top two spots in the April 23 vote
Paris: The two frontrunners in the French presidential election, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron, were staging rival rallies in Paris on Monday, seeking to stay ahead of a fast-chasing pack just days before the vote.
After weeks of twists and turns, the unpredictable race has narrowed dramatically, with surveys suggesting four candidates are in contention to win one of the top two spots in the April 23 vote and progress to the run-off election a fortnight later.
Scandal-hit conservative Francois Fillon and radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon are steaming up behind the two frontrunners, and with around one in three of the French electorate still undecided, candidates are scrapping for every vote.
Le Pen and Macron, who have both scored as high as 25 per cent in voter surveys, stood at 22 per cent in the latest IPSOS poll, while Melenchon has surged to 20 per cent and Fillon stands at 19.
Melenchon’s late surge — and the possibility he could square off against Le Pen in the May 7 decider — has sparked alarm over the future of the EU, as both candidates advocate withdrawing from the bloc for different reasons.
Outgoing President Francois Hollande weighed in on Saturday, saying Europe has “protected us against war” in the decades since World War II.
“Let us preserve it instead of scapegoating it,” he said at a World War I centenary event in northern France. Macron plans his biggest rally yet at the Bercy sports and concert hall, a venue with a capacity of 20,000.
The location near the economy ministry serves as a reminder that the relatively inexperienced Macron held the key economy portfolio for two years under his mentor Hollande.
The 39-year-old former Rothschild banker quit the Socialist government last year to form his “En Marche” (“On the Move”) party and launch his bid for power as a candidate “neither of the left nor of the right”.
En Marche says it has planned “1,000 events a day” including 163 public rallies until the official end of campaigning at midnight on Friday.
An aide to Macron said he would use Monday’s event to hit back at Le Pen’s accusation he is soft on militants.
Le Pen’s own rally will be at the 6,000-capacity Zenith concert hall in northeast Paris, with activists saying they plan protests outside the venue.
A protest is also expected in the southern port of Marseille on Wednesday where Le Pen plans another large rally. Melenchon, 65, plans a quirky event that will see him board a barge in a northeast suburb of the French capital and float down a canal, making five stops along the way to meet and greet supporters. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
