Presidential campaign: the polls to which better better

Audio 02:48

With the approach of the French presidential election of 2022, this time like the previous ones, the surveys on the voting intentions of the French follow one another and make the law in the presidential campaign.

© AFP - CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT

By: Valérie Gas Follow

2 min

For months, polls have followed one another in the presidential campaign.

All the candidates watch them closely even if they say the opposite.

What should we think of a campaign that advances through opinion polls?

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The polls do not make the election, it has almost become a political saying since Jacques Chirac, buried in the polls against Edouard Balladur a few months before the 1995 presidential election, finally won, defeating all forecasts.

And yet, this time like the previous ones, the surveys on the voting intentions of the French follow one another and make the law in the presidential campaign. On the left, it was the polls that sanctioned the flop of Anne Hidalgo's entry into the campaign. For a time, the right-wing candidates hoped to be separated by the polls. Xavier Bertrand also believed he could fold the match by distancing his competitors from the Republicans thanks to the voting intentions. Except that it did not work, he did not widen enough the gap and is forced to submit to the vote of the militants of the right party vis-a-vis Valérie Pécresse and Michel Barnier in particular. While Éric Zemmour, the polemicist not yet a candidate but already tested in the surveys, is the pawn of Marine Le Pen,the one that the polls had so far tirelessly placed in the second round of the 2022 presidential election in a return match with Emmanuel Macron.

Emmanuel Macron spared by the turmoil in the polls

The President of the Republic remains for the moment very high in the polls as if his function preserved him.

And he tries to take advantage of this favorable bubble by declaring that he wants to work “ 

 ”.

He launched his France 2030 plan to show that he was planning well beyond April 2022. In his entourage, we overplay this posture of president in action and nothing but in action, with all the more of peace that for the moment, the polls are good.

The watchword is: " 

 ".

A way of recognizing despite everything that we keep our eyes riveted on the surveys, especially when in the wake of one of the last polls we slip a little commentary on the progress of Eric Zemmour by declaring with a certain jubilation : " 

 ."

Attention all the same to the sin of optimism, a deputy of the former majority close to Alain Juppé, the darling of the polls in 2017, remembers his failure in the primary of the right and remains cautious: " 

 ”.

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• Presidential France 2022

• Emmanuel Macron

• French politics