Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – A candidate for the Presidency, painted as a far-right extremist, is making a late surge in the polls but is still too far behind to realistically win the election.
Sounds a lot like this past cycle, in which Donald Trump closed hard in polling numbers on Hillary Clinton days before the election, but was still considered too far behind by so-called experts.
Are we seeing the same thing with France’s own version of Trump, Marine Le Pen?
Le Pen, the populist choice running against a heavily favored candidate in Emmanuel Macron, has been making a move in the polls for France’s presidential election.
Via Sky News:
The centrist favourite to win the French presidency is losing his lead over his far-right rival with just a week to go until the vote.
Emmanuel Macron’s lead over Marine Le Pen has slipped six points since polls conducted just before the first round last Sunday.
However, he is still as much as 20 points ahead.
Macron held a 26-point lead just last week.
The latest surging poll numbers do not reflect Le Pen’s newly formed alliance with one of the defeated first round presidential candidates, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, whose party, Debout La France (Stand Up France), is an offshoot of the conservative right.
Additionally, not every voter has committed to either candidate yet.
“Many voters are still undecided,” Newsweek reports, “meaning Le Pen, who’s divided the country with her anti-immigration stance, still has a chance.”
Le Pen recently garnered the support of Political Insider readers when she refused to wear a head scarf despite the demands of a Muslim cleric.
OMG I love her ! Marine Le Pen refuses to wear a headscarf!
Thuglife! #TuesdayMotivation pic.twitter.com/fqyIndMxk8
— Oak-Town☢Unfiltered™ (@hrtablaze) February 21, 2017
Politico writes that “Le Pen needs a perfect political storm to help her win the French presidency on Sunday.”
A ‘perfect political storm?’
Isn’t that what we saw with the Brexit vote? Isn’t that what we saw more recently with the election of Donald Trump?
Bill Clinton, on election night in America, lamented his wife’s loss to Trump saying he felt “that the British vote to leave the European Union had been a harbinger for a kind of screw-it vote in the United States”.
“It’s like Brexit,” he said. “I guess it’s real.”
Will it also be a harbinger of Le Pen’s success? Can history repeat itself? Only time will tell.
Do you think Marine Le Pen has a shot in the upcoming French presidential election? Share your thoughts below.
