French trust Marine Le Pen’s RN most on economy, FT poll suggests

Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance faces an uphill battle convincing voters that its opponents would crash the economy after fresh polling suggested that the far-right Rassemblement National was more trusted on the issue.

Macron’s Ensemble is heading into the last week of campaigning before Sunday’s high-stakes first-round vote trailing its far-right and leftwing rivals.

It is struggling to land its core message that it is the only credible party to manage the economy and public finances.

An Ipsos poll for the Financial Times carried out on June 19-20 found that 25 per cent of respondents had most confidence in Marine Le Pen’s RN to take the correct decisions on economic issues.

That figure comes despite the party’s unfunded tax-cutting and spending plans and its lack of experience in government. It compares with 22 per cent for the leftwing New Popular Front (NFP) and just 20 per cent for Macron’s alliance.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who is leading the Ensemble campaign, doubled down on its central message on Sunday, telling RTL radio that France faced “economic and social carnage” and a “crushing of the middle class” if the far right or NFP took power.

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Attal insisted that the centrists had momentum, having gained several points in support since they suffered a resounding defeat in European parliament elections on June 9. However, in line with other polls, the Ipsos survey put Ensemble at 19.5 per cent of voting intentions in the first round, well behind the RN and its allies on 35.5 per cent and the leftwing NFP on 29.5 per cent.

Ensemble’s share was uncomfortably close to the threshold of 12.5 per cent of registered voters needed in each seat to qualify for the run-off vote on July 7.

Despite appeals from his own camp to stay out of the campaign, lest it become a straight referendum on his presidency, Macron issued a letter to the French people on Sunday evening, defending his record and urging them to reject the extremes and vote for moderates. “This third way is best for our country,” he said. He also insisted he would stay on as president until 2027.

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The RN will flesh out its legislative agenda at an event on Monday as it heads into the final week of campaigning before the first-round vote. Ensemble and the NFP have both hit out at the RN for not detailing how it will finance its spending plans.

In a sign of the election’s importance for France’s relations with the EU, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told TV station ARD on Sunday that he “hoped that parties that are not Le Pen, so to speak, will be successful in the election”, in a rare intervention in French politics.

The Ipsos poll showed that RN ranked top on improving living standards, managing the deficit and lowering taxes. Remarkably, it also came first for reducing unemployment, a big success of Macron’s presidency, during which joblessness fell to a 15-year low before ticking up last year.

Strikingly, 23 per cent of respondents said they trusted RN the most to reduce the public deficit and debt.

Macron’s alliance and the NFP, which has vast tax and spending plans, were equal at 17 per cent.

The data appears to support the message that Macron campaign staffers say they hear on the doorsteps: having tried everything else, voters are willing to give the RN a try.

“This dynamic is undoubtedly linked to the RN’s strategy of ‘normalisation’, but also to the disappointment caused by the left under President François Hollande and then by Macronism, and the difficulties for the left to provide a credible and coherent opposition to Macron,” said Mathieu Gallard, a pollster at Ipsos.

“In this context, the RN is perceived as a party that is, if not competent, at least no less competent than other political formations.”

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An Elabe poll for BFM TV and La Tribune Dimanche published on Saturday also found that the RN’s economic programme was perceived more positively than that of either the left or Macron’s alliance.

However, it found that 62 per cent of respondents said the RN’s programme was not credible, versus 36 per cent who said it was.

The far right fought the 2022 presidential election with policies independently costed at more than €100bn a year. Jordan Bardella, RN president and its candidate for prime minister, has pared back those promises in recent days and said he would first conduct an audit of the public finances.

But the party is committed to immediately cutting value added tax on energy and fuel and reversing Macron’s increase in the pension age from 64 to 62. Those two policies alone could cost €20bn-€30bn a year, according to analysts.

Economists warn that the RN plans lack any serious revenue-raising proposals.

Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist of the IMF, said the RN’s policies were “fiscally irresponsible. Gifts cost money. The money is not there, at least not in the programme.”

The survey involved 2,000 people who were registered voters aged 18 and over.

This story was updated to add final adjusted numbers on voting intentions.

Additional reporting by Janina Conboye