How Far Right Marine Le Pen Won Over Middle-Aged Voters

R&I~Smit

French President Emmanuel Macron and National Rally (Rassemblement National) leader Marine Le Pen are heading into a tight runoff after a tense first round of the election on Sunday that saw the two separated by only a few percentage points at the top of the list of candidates hoping to lead France for the next five years.

The gap between the pair is much closer than expected. When Le Pen challenged Macron in 2017, she got 21.5 percent of the votes in the first round against Macrons’ 23.7 percent. In the second round of the election, she got 33.90 percent of the vote against his 66.10 percent.

In the first round of the election this year, she got 23.41 percent of support against the president’s 27.6 percent.

“Since 2017, she has changed quite significantly how she presents to the French electorate. And Macron has not significantly changed how he presents to the French electorate,” Ben Judah, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, told Newsweek.

Mariam

Article URL : https://www.newsweek.com/how-far-right-marine-le-pen-won-over-middle-aged-voters-1697493