Marine Le Pen is leading France’s presidential race by a wide margin six months before the vote, and the polling change that matters most is in the second round. An Odoxa survey of 12,000 people, carried out between September 24 and October 7 and reported by Reuters on October 14, put Le Pen at 37 or 38 percent of first round voting intentions depending on the scenario, with hard left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon second at 18 or 18.5 percent. Former prime minister Edouard Philippe, the strongest centrist tested, took 17 percent, and Gabriel Attal 11 percent.
A more recent Ipsos Fiducial survey gave Le Pen between 34 and 38 percent in the first round, a lead of 18 to 22 points over the second placed candidate, and had her winning all five second round scenarios tested: by wide margins against Melenchon and former president Francois Hollande, by 14 points against Raphael Glucksmann, by 16 against Attal, and by 56 to 44 against Philippe. France 24’s weekend segment, recorded the day after the National Rally congress opened in Orleans, likewise put her lead at up to 38 percent with six months to go.
That runoff finding is the break with the last decade. In 2017 and 2022 the republican front, voters of all camps uniting behind whoever faced Le Pen, kept her from the Elysee. The polling now shows that mechanism eroding, as President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist ground hollows out at the end of his second term: Macron cannot run again, his camp is split between Philippe and Attal, and polarisation is widening at both ends, Reuters reported.
The Orleans congress covered on this site yesterday, where about 11,000 people marched against the National Rally and the party moved to launch Le Pen’s campaign and re-elect Jordan Bardella as leader, is the organisational side of the same story. Her campaign speech on Sunday afternoon was built on a theme of renewal, France 24 reported, and researchers cited in its coverage note that recent protest violence helps the party present itself as the one able to restore public safety. The first round is on April 18, with the runoff on May 2. Six months of polling is not a result, but a candidate who leads every tested runoff has changed the question the other camps have to answer: not how to beat her in the second round, but whether anyone can.