Strict elections in France. the ghost of a high abstention, the need for a useful vote to stop the extreme right of Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour and a shifted socialist left, unable to find its identity, is part of the scenario. Five days before the first round of elections more complicated in FranceMacron urges voters to come out while polls are being arranged.

The president is headed by Marine Le Pen, the most right -wing candidate, for more than six points. But the result it is still uncertainsaid analysts.

The election cannot enter a most chaotic moment for Europe including Ukraine at war, the massacres that accused Vladimir Putin of being a “war criminal” and the subsequent cost of living crisis that caused widespread economic discontent, with inflation reaching 6 or percent.

President Macron it took him a while before coming out of his campaign because of the war, his negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and he finally made it to a letter in French. He admitted that he failed to persuade people to avoid political extremes.

Emmanuel Macron urged voters to come out for the first round of the French presidential election on Sunday, stressing the importance of giving him a clear mandate. Democracy is in crisis in Europe. autocrats and xenophobes anti-Muslims are growing. There is the phenomenon of lack of credibility in representation and the ability to achieve change.

Why vote?

In a French radio interview, President Macron said he was surprised at the growing tendency of people to ask questions. What is the point of voting?

“Is it worthwhile? Yes. If I didn’t have a real mandate five years ago, I wouldn’t be able to do what I did. Only the vote gives that legitimacy,” Macron told France Inter.

“A lot of people signed up for causes, petitions, movements. But they didn’t really vote. The causes are important. But the profound changes we can make in society they come when we vote”, Clarified the president.

Five days before the first round, that is selects the last two candidatespolls continue to suggest that Macron is the favorite to win the first round and face Marine Le Penof the far-right National Group, in the second round of April 24, a repeat of 2017.

However, with Le Pen closing the gap from the first round, at 22% to Macron’s 28.5%, and far left Jean-Luc Mélenchon is seven points behind him, political analysts and pollsters said. the result is far from an earlier conclusion.

The power of the extreme right

Support for all the right -wing candidates in the election is now at 35%. a new phenomenon in the French political scene, post Yellow Vests. Macron admitted that during his five years on the Elysee, marked by the covid pandemic and, more recently, by the war in Ukraine, he failed to persuade people to avoid political extremes.

“I failed to convince those people the far right is not the answer“, he said.

promised reforms

Macron also reiterated his determination to reform the country’s pension system. A proposal that drove over a month of strikes in France in 2019-2020.

The worst industrial action to hit the country since the previous attempt to reform pensions in 2010. If re-elected, he said he would raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 yearsexcept for a few special exceptions, and will introduce a minimum pension of 1,100 euros per month, to be indexed.

“I want to defend the system where the working people pay the pensions of the retirees. I want to defend this system, but we cannot continue like this. The system it includes numbers in red. Those with low pensions are having a hard time, ”said the head of state.

“Everyone tells you we can keep pensions like they are now, they are lying. Now, on average, people don’t stop working at 62 years old, they continue until 63.5 years old. And several million of our citizens, many of them women, are hardworking, working until they are 67 years old. There is a kind of hypocrisy in this, ”Macron described.

Promised health and education system reforms, which also raises hair in workers. However, he said he has no plans to force 12-year-olds to intern, as Mélenchon said. “That’s it fake toddler“, he said.

Macron and Moscow

Macron said he was shocked by the pictures of the massacres in Ukraine. He called for stricter sanctions and “clear measures” against Moscow, saying that there is clear evidence that the Russian army had committed war crimes.

According to electoral rulesthe campaign will end on Friday at midnight. So the candidates have until then to persuade French voters.

Zemmour and his anti -immigration rhetoric

The far -right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, holding fourth or fifth place in the pollshas bolstered his anti -immigration rhetoric and vowed to expel 1 million foreigners if selected.

The center -right candidate for Les Républicains, Valerie Pecresse, currently at about the same level in polls, voters say should rise up to avoid the second round between Le Pen and Macron.

Anne Hidalgo of the Socialist Party, the mayor of Paris currently struggling with polls, urged the “left family” to support her. But progressives and the moderate left believe Jean Luc Melénchon should be voted out. A “useful vote” against the extreme rightall united.

The difference is only three points. This now separates Emmanuel Macron (51.5%) and Marine Le Pen (48.5%) in the second round of presidential electionsaccording to the Harris poll released yesterday.

Earlier this month, the difference between the two is 16 points. The RN candidate climb, climb, climb, and even the macronists looked at him with astonishment.

Have they played with fire too much, through fear of themselves, clearing the whole press that Le Pen’s danger is real?

This is the opinion of an early militant. “Its popular electorate is the most demobilized. But there, it was as if we were saying to them: ‘Come on, little friend, Le Pen may win,’ “he lamented. And added:” We, our voters, have already acted. “

Abstention is at risk of being reached unprecedented heights this year: nearly one in three voters does not want to go to enter their ballot in the ballot box, according to Harris.

The myth of the republic

Even the extreme right is at the door of power? The delegate president of the LREM group in the Assembly and deputy for Yvelines Aurore Bergé assured that they no longer believe in the myth of the republican front. “The moral argument doesn’t work. We have to stop storytelling,” he said.

Horror stories? The fear of the extreme right and the Republican reserve that led Jacques Chirac to win the election when Jean Marie Le Pen came on the ballot in 2002, It no longer works. The Lepenists they are demonized by Marine Le Pen, when he separated from his father.

From the Cité north of Marseille, Elisabeth, 68, who once voted left, will vote for the far -right Marine Le Pen in this month’s French presidential election. He is a classic case.

“People back then thought Marine was naughty,” he said. “Now they realize that no. Other politicians take their ideas. They all speak like him nowElizabeth’s explanation.

Elisabeth left school at age 16 and worked in a shoe store, in factories and as a maid. But his € 800 pension barely covers bills and meals.

“I live on credit, overdraft in the middle of the month,” he said. “I make poor stew and it takes three days. But Le Pen will cut taxes and put money in our pockets”.

He agrees with Le Pen’s stance against immigration. Feel that the “Europeans” is surpassed in the multi-ethnic north of Marseille and concerned about crime. “I’ve been fooled twice: one for a necklace, one for a cigarette, ”he said. “Society is tense and divided,” he feels, but Le Pen “will calm things down.”

After spending a decade trying to detoxify the image of the far-right anti-immigration party that succeeded his father, Le Pen reached out this week its highest rating and popularity.

Polls show that he not only reached the second-round final against centrist President Emmanuel Macron on April 24, but also significant gap closure.

Paris, correspondent

ap