It will be a four-way battle: this emerges from the latest polls, just under a week before the first round of the French presidential elections. It will therefore not be a two-way fight between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, as seemed obvious until a few weeks ago (voting will take place next Sunday, April 23): the republican François Fillon and the left-wing radical Jean-Luc Mélenchon cannot yet be given up for dead. At least according to the polls, which in the last major electoral appointments, Brexit and the USA, have taken little, but this time to make no mistake they deliver to the French media a situation that has never been so balanced since the beginning of the electoral campaign and perhaps in the entire history of the fifth French Republic, mostly marked by bipolarism.
This time instead there are four of them to play it and the big news is that among the four there is no candidate from the socialist party, or rather the one expressed by the outgoing majority: Benoit Hamon is now only 8% and according to some there is even the crazy idea of giving up the candidacy to support that of the independent, and decidedly more biased to the left, Mélenchon, defined by Le Figaro as "the French Chavez" and promoter of a program focused on public spending and draconian fiscal measures, from the fight against tax evasion to the super-taxation of high incomes.
MELENCHON – In particular Mélenchon, born in Morocco of French-Algerian parents, would like tax at 100% income exceeding 400 euros per year (33 euros per month), or in fact would like to put a ceiling on earnings and add tax steps (get to 14 from the current 5) so that those who declare the maximum income, i.e. 33 euros a month, pay 90% of taxes. The leader of "La France insoumise", with a degree in philosophy, also wants to tax French people residing abroad: in the case of sportsmen, he has also said that otherwise they will no longer wear the shirts of the transalpine national teams. In his package there is also the increase in the minimum wage (SMIC) from the current 1.150 euros net to 1.300, and the abolition of the Senate.
THE PEN – Mélenchon therefore continues to rise in voting intentions, going to gather the anger of the most disappointed and anti-European electorate, in the same way (but with different solutions) as Marine Le Pen, who in fact has lost something in recent weeks: today almost one in five voters (18,5%) would vote for the left-wing extremist and 22,5% ( against 26% some time ago) for the leader of the Front National, a huge favorite at the start of the electoral campaign. Le Pen proposes a markedly populist and anti-European programme: he wants to lower – like Mélenchon – the retirement age to 60 (from the current 62), reserve social policies (the solidarity contribution for the poorest, the disabled, and the assignment of social housing) to French citizens only, abolish the ius soli and tighten up border controls and the granting of the right to asylum, abolish Schengen and the PAC (common agricultural policies) to return to a national agricultural policy. But above all the daughter of art (her father Jean-Marie, now almost 90, reached a historic ballot in 2002, then losing to Chirac) she hopes for a return to the franc and if elected will propose a referendum for leaving the European Union.
MACRON – Anti-Europeanism is somewhat of a leitmotif of the French campaign: however, the only expressly pro-European candidate, former Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron, is at the top of the polls, with 23,5% of the preferences of the interviewees. Macron, who always according to projections would win against anyone once the ballot is reached (as opposed to Le Pen who is given the loser in all combinations), is the rising star of French politics. Not yet 40, he managed to occupy a large electoral space vacated by extremism that are so fashionable: despite returning from the experience with the Hollande government, judged disastrous by the majority of citizens, he was able to reinvent himself as a centrist, or rather liberal-progressive. The balance of him pleases the French more and more, perhaps precisely because of the four candidates he is the one who would change the least things, especially on the international front.
Macron in fact, he wants France to remain firmly in Europe, which complies with the 3% deficit/GDP stability pact, is also in favor of the Atlantic trade treaties with the USA and Canada (the only one among the 11 candidates) and still strongly believes in NATO, indeed he would leave it as it is, opposing new entries. The former banker of the Rothschilds would also like to maintain Schengen, the ius soli, the current law on religious symbols (banned in schools since 2004, the veil banned in public places since 2010), the current and much discussed Loi Travail (the Jobs Act French, which all the other 10 candidates would like to see again). Even on pensions Macron is conservative (he is the only one who would leave them exactly as they are), while the big news of his program are mainly three: reduction of the tax wedge for companies, but above all enormous cuts in public spending (in particular through the suppression of 120 jobs) and the abolition of the property tax for 80% of those who pay it.
FILLON – Lastly, in the leading group is François Fillon, former prime minister during Sarkozy's presidency and under fire for months now for the legal proceedings relating to the fictitious positions assigned to his wife and children: however this is not preventing the Gaullist candidate from remaining in the game, currently in third place in the starting grid with 20% of the preferences in the polls. Fillon he is moderately pro-European but above all the more liberal candidate, the one that proposes more drastic changes in terms of work and social policies in favor of a reduction in public spending: starting from the cut of half a million civil servants up to raising the retirement age to 65 years.
Among the eligible candidates, Fillon is, for example, the only one who would like to increase VAT, abolish the solidarity tax on large fortunes (a tax that concerns 340 taxpayers with incomes exceeding 1,3 million, and which yields to the state coffers 5,2 billion a year), and even to make the already highly criticized Loi Travail even more favorable to employers. The Republican candidate it also suggests saying goodbye to the historic 35-hour law, the lowest weekly working time in Europe and which Mélenchon would even like to reduce to 32: Fillon suggests leaving it to agreements between the worker and the company.
