For supporters of Marine Le Pen, the path that should lead the candidate of the National Rally (RN) to “a surprise victory” in the presidential election is a question of“electoral arithmetic”emphasizes the The Daily Telegraph.
The British conservative daily therefore takes stock of the potential carryovers, stressing in particular that, even if all the voters of Éric Zemmour – who won 7.1% of the vote on April 10 – voted for Le Pen in the second round, the candidate would total only about 30% of the electorate.
The RN candidate could also recover the 2% of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and “some points” among the voters of Valérie Pécresse. But to win, he will need “betting on a bold strategy”assure The Daily Telegraphand in particular to convince “a good part of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing electorate” to switch to the Lepenist camp.
Mélenchon, the “French Jeremy Corbyn”
For the British daily, the idea “is not as incongruous as it seems” :
“Certainly, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a candidate of the radical left, a sort of French Jeremy Corbyn. But Marine Le Pen’s obsession with immigration and national identity is accompanied by a generous economic program, which glorifies the welfare state.
In the French political system, “extremes come together, it’s a well-known phenomenon”continues The Daily Telgraphwhich reminds us that it is not uncommon, “in declining industrial regions”, to meet voters who have swung from the extreme left to the extreme right.
However, the British newspaper notes that Marine Le Pen’s program notably includes a tax exemption for those under 30, an increase in the minimum old age and a retirement at 60 for the earliest workers. Ideas “which could appeal to left-wing voters who reject Macron the ‘president of the rich’”.
And if Mélenchon asked his supporters on Sunday to “not giving a single voice” to Marine Le Pen, “he didn’t go so far as to ask them to vote for Emmanuel Macron”, observe The Daily Telegraph. And the daily cites the results of an Ifop poll, carried out on Sunday April 10, which has reason to worry the outgoing president: according to this survey, 23% of Mélenchon voters plan to vote for Le Pen, 33% for Macron, and 44% intend to abstain.