Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Eric Zemmour and Valérie Pécresse were among those eliminated after the first-round vote
, the centre-right Republicans’ candidate, trailed in fifth place, with a mere 4.8% of the vote, a devastating result for her party.
The first-round results also confirmed the upending of national party politics that has taken place since Mr Macron won power in 2017. Five years ago, the combined presidential score for the Socialists’ and Republicans’ candidates, representatives of the two political families that had traditionally held power under the Fifth Republic, was 26%. This time, it dropped to a catastrophic 6.5%.
In 2017 a dramatic two-thirds of French voters decided that Ms Le Pen was the candidate to evict. Many of those who had no particular liking for the one-time investment banker and former economy minister in a Socialist government backed Mr Macron all the same in order to keep Ms Le Pen out. In the second round Ms Le Pen is likely to draw support not only from Mr Zemmour, who shares much of her anti-immigration platform, but also, more surprisingly, from voters whose first choice was Mr Mélenchon on the left and Mrs Pécresse on the centre-right—although Mrs Pécresse called on her supporters to back Mr Macron in the second round.
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