1. A few differences with the United States
France's main polling institutions have been quite accurate for the first round's results, and they are now predicting that former investment banker and neoliberal candidate Emmanuel Macron will win the runoff vote by over 25 percentage points. As for U.S. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, she was expected to win by only a couple of points in several decisive states.
Another key difference is that while mainstream Republicans were reluctant to endorse Clinton against Donald Trump, most of the French traditional right-wing leaders have immediately encouraged their electorate to vote for Macron.
One last factor could be the turnout rate, much higher in France — about 80 percent in the first round — than in the United States, which stood at about 55 percent in the November elections.
2. How different is this election from 2002 really?
While most of the media is portraying the French elections as if it completely redrew the country's political landscape, it seems that nothing has really changed since the 2002 elections when Jean-Marie Le Pen won enough votes to run for the second round against the “establishment” candidate, Jacques Chirac, while Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin was immediately eliminated from the race.
This time though, Macron was smart enough to run as an independent candidate instead of in a traditional centrist party, presenting himself as an “outsider” in a bid to distance himself from the unpopular government of Francois Hollande. This strategy seems to have paid off, as people seem to have forgotten that as Hollande's economy minister, Macron was the mastermind of many of the unpopular neoliberal policies carried out in recent years, including the labor bill El Khomri that sparked the spontaneous Nuit Debout movement — although part of his support also came from voters who wanted to avoid a runoff vote between Le Pen and conservative candidate Francois Fillon, currently riddled with corruption scandals.
IN DEPTH:
French Elections 2017
But could he win the popular vote against Le Pen's daughter, slightly more polished than her father, 15 years after Chirac eventually won the presidency?
In terms of evolution of the vote, the far-right vote only gained a couple of points in the polls: while Le Pen obtained more than 21 percent on Sunday, her father received almost 17 percent — adding to the 2 percent of another far-right candidate, Bruno Maigret, three years after he quit the National Front and created his own party. Therefore Le Pen's daughter only gained 2 percent of the total electorate in 15 years.
Nevertheless, in the second round, Chirac benefited from a surge of mobilization from voters, at the time appalled by the results and scared of a Le Pen victory. The turnout rate jumped from 71 to 80 percent, and Chirac was elected with 82 percent of the vote.
3. What do the polls say?
In the first round, Le Pen came in behind Macron by only 2 to 3 points — about the same gap separating her father and Chirac in 2002, but will voters react in the same massive wave of rejection of her candidacy?
First, the daughter has tried hard to create a slicker image of her xenophobic party, appealing more to the moderate vote. As soon as she started campaigning for the second round, she immediately announced she temporarily suspended her presidency at the National Front in order to look like a credible option as a “president of all the French.”
ANALYSIS:
What the Forgotten of the French Republic Think Of the Election
However, according to French pollsters, Le Pen's party remains unpopular for 68 percent of French voters (Ipsos-Cevipof), 62 percent declared they disagree with the party's ideas, and 58 percent believe it represents a danger for democracy (Ifop).
One of Le Pen's central measures — to leave the Euro currency and the European Union — scares more than 85 percent of the people surveyed, making unlikely a “Frexit” situation like in the U.K.
Yet, pollster warned that Le Pen could win the election on May 7 “out of luck,” if her opponents prefer abstaining, instead of mobilizing like they did for Chirac in 2002.
Another frightening possibility would be a massive mobilization in her support from people who abstained in the first round. Pollsters, however, found that factor would hardly work out for Le Pen, as she would need 65 percent of the first round's abstentionists to vote for her — about 7 million voters.
An important part of the radical left, including voters for France Unbowed France's Jean-Luc Melenchon and Anti-Capitalist Party's Philippe Poutou have already launched a campaign on social media under the hashtag #SansMoiLe7Mai, or #May7WithoutMe, calling for a massive abstention. They refuse to choose between "the hatred of the foreigners" and "the hatred of the poor," and refused to give any support and legitimacy to Macron, arguing that Macron's neoliberal program is exactly what fomented the far-right vote since the 1970s.
If Le Pen's opponents abstain while the first round's abstentionists mobilize for her she could have a chance to become France's next president, augmenting the far-right trend in Europe and the U.S.