Marine Le Pen would take 37% or 38% of the first-round vote, depending on the scenario. That was the finding of an Odoxa poll of 12,000 people, surveyed between September 24 and October 7 and reported by Reuters on October 14. Her closest rival in the survey, the hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, came in at 18% or 18.5%.
The vote itself is set for April 18, 2027, with a run-off on May 2. Emmanuel Macron, whose second term ends then, cannot stand again.
The centre has thinned out
Reuters described the centrist ground as hollowed out by Macron’s growing unpopularity. Odoxa tested two possible centrist names, both former prime ministers under him. Edouard Philippe came out at 17%, Gabriel Attal at only 11%.
The pollster found Le Pen beating Melenchon easily in a run-off and also winning against Philippe, though by a narrower margin. A separate YouGov poll taken on September 21st tested her against four opponents, and she led all of them:
against Attal, 57-43; against Raphaël Glucksmann, 59-41; against Melenchon, 64-36; against Philippe, 55-45.
Neither of the two front-runners is new to this. Melenchon ran in 2012, 2017 and 2022 and has never reached the second round. Le Pen ran in the same three years and made the run-off in 2017 and 2022, losing both times to Macron.
A left that did not unite
On the left, the week of October 9 brought a jolt. The Local reported that the Socialist Party will field no candidate in 2027, the first time that has happened since the Fifth Republic began in 1958. Its leader, Olivier Faure, finished second in a centre-left primary to Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament who co-founded Place Publique in 2022. Within minutes of the result, someone threw flour over the winner.
The primary was meant to thin the field. It did not. Melenchon’s La France Insoumise stayed out, as did the Greens and the Communists, and The Local noted a further primary was planned between the Green leader and another hard-left hopeful.
Trouble at the National Rally
Le Pen’s own camp has had a bad few weeks. Mediapart published messages from 2013 in which a young Jordan Bardella wrote antisemitic comments, backing the story with server logins and account details. Bardella denies that the account was his and says he will take legal action, by a route unlikely to reach court before the election.
He is no longer the party’s candidate in any case. Le Pen persuaded a court to shorten the election ban imposed after her embezzlement conviction, and so she is running herself. Talk of a Le Pen and Bardella ticket has faded, and The Local reported a rift between the two. One poll found that 72 percent of French voters had not changed their view of Bardella after the story broke.
Sources
- Le Pen and Melenchon gain momentum ahead of French 2027 election, poll shows
- Presidential election watch: French centre-left primary, antisemitism and a flour bomb
