French Election: Premature celebrations take tolls on Macron’s round two campaigns

After the ‘En Marche’ leader Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the election on last Sunday with 23.9 percent of the votes, he dived into huge celebrations in his party headquarter in Paris. He then visited an expensive Parisian restaurant, the same choice as the incumbent unpopular President François Hollande to celebrate his victory in the first round. Both his critics and allies condemned his premature and gaudy celebrations, which helped to establish his elite image once more.

His rival in the second round, the candidate for Front National Marine Le Pen seized the opportunity to unleash attacks on his celebrations and called him an arrogant. That incident followed another in a whirlpool factory to be closed soon, where Marine Le Pen made a surprise visit and seized the moment by meeting workers while Mr. Macron was in conversation with the union leaders in the Chamber of Commerce. She also praised the defeated leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in a bid to divide the united front against her. Many of the euro-skeptic Mélenchon’s voters are likely to support the candidacy of Marine Le Pen.  

An Elabe poll has found that more than 50 percent of the survey respondents believe that Marine Le Pen’s round two campaigns started well compared to 43 percent for Macron. A similar poll conducted by Harris Interactive found that 61 percent of the voters think that Le Pen is leading a successful round two campaign compared to 48 percent for Macron.