Emmanuel Macron is worried. This wasn’t how he had envisaged the election. A month ago the president of France held a staggering 18 point lead in the polls and, as he looked over his shoulder in the home straight, he could barely make out Marine Le Pen in the distance.
Now the gap is four points and she is breathing down his neck as the finish line approaches.
Le Pen is one of Europe’s more interesting politicians. The daughter of Jean-Marie, the founder of her National Front party – which she rebranded National Rally in 2018 – and the aunt of Marion Maréchal, she has always been considered something of a political second-rater.
She made it through to the second round of the 2017 election, mainly because the centre-right and centre-left candidates were so hopeless, but was destroyed by Macron in the live televised debate three days before the final vote.
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