The first round of the French Presidential election will be held this coming Sunday, 23rd April. The electoral system here works as follows: the two candidates winning the most votes go into a second round, which is a straight fight between the two candidates.
The shock victories last year of Brexit and Trump have produced a general feeling that anything can happen in elections these days, with opinion polls not necessarily being very accurate forecasts of results. This environment has led to a feeling that the Front National candidate, Marine Le Pen, might possibly win this Presidential election, something that until recently has been unthinkable. To be more specific, she could easily (and probably will) come first or second in the first round, and thus qualify for the second round of voting.
This feeling has eased off as a center-right candidate, Emmanuel Macron, quickly emerged as the favorite to attain second place, and emerge into the second round where he gains a 20% advantage over Le Pen, winning a crushing victory. It would not be the first time this scenario unfolds – this happened to Le Pen’s father almost 20 years ago, in which he was crushed in the second round by Jacques Chirac. In this way, the race becomes a race for second place, which guarantees victory through the strong anti-Le Pen vote.
So far so good for mainstream opinion – yet a wild card has emerged in recent days which seriously threatens to upset this calculation, in the shape of Jean-Luc Melenchon, running on a platform of withdrawal from NATO, the International Monetary Fund, and (essentially) the European Union. Melenchon is currently polling 19%, just behind Fillon on 20%, Le Pen on 22% and Macron on 23%. This means a scenario where Le Pen and Melenchon take first and second place and go into the second round is completely plausible and well within the statistical margin of error. What would happen in this scenario? Currently, Melenchon wins the second round by 14%.
Interestingly, the realistic prospect of Melenchon as France’s next President does not seem to be disturbing the Euro much, it is still buoyed up by the British Pound. That could change when the markets open next Monday morning in Asia if the result puts two candidates well outside the political mainstream into the second round. Alternatively, if Macron gets into the second round, we might see the Euro rally even more.
