Merkel: Butikofer on how Chancellor is 'presenting' Macron

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Just 32 percent of those asked by ViaVoice in their poll for the outlet Liberation expressed a desire for him to run again for the April 2022 elections. This is compared to the 35 percent of respondents who didn’t want to see Mr Macron campaigning “at all.”

A further 24 percent answered that they would “rather not” see Mr Macron vie again for the top job in the Elysée.

Crucially, 56 percent weren’t convinced that Macron would have the “skills to get France out the current crises.”

Worryingly for Mr Macron, 55 percent didn’t deem the current President “credible” for re-election.

ViaVoice pollsters did note, however, that this contrasts with the positive perceptions held by Mr Macron’s 2017 voters, among whom he hangs on to between a 68 and 71 percent approval rate.

Among all French people asked, 40 percent believed that Mr Macron’s assessment of the economy is positive, dipping to 39 on health issues.

ViaVoice [hyperlink to the poll and analysis], analysing these results, talk of Mr Macron’s “hybrid political position.”

There are indicators of a sturdy support base, but a void of desirability in public opinion in the run-up to the elections.

This reveals, according to the pollsters, an “overall mistrust.” This is not the only hurdle Macron will face to clear to win support in next year’s election: ViaVoice says Macron’s real problem is that over two-thirds of French people don’t think Macron is “close to the people.”

Even more alarmingly for Macron, over seven in ten people don’t feel that Macron can “represent people like them.”

In comparison with other candidates in the running for the presidency, just over half of French people believe he would be better suited to leading the country than Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Mélenchon, who has been described as a “Jeremy Corbyn-like figure” by some, watched on as Macron made economic pledges in Marseille last week, vowing to pour billions of euros into revamping the city of Marseille.

It’s thought that this is a pattern likely to appear in Macron’s campaigning if the incumbent decides to bid for re-election.

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Half of those polled responded that they thought Macron would do a better job than Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate whom Macron beat out for the presidency in 2017.

Macron’s victory over nationalist Le Pen in 2017 was resounding, particularly in the areas surrounding the capital city of Paris.

In 2017, his pro-European and business-orientated message was well received in the moneyed, urban areas.

Directly facing off with Le Pen in the second round of voting, his centrist platform appealed more to those unwilling to embrace the more decidedly right-wing stances of Le Pen’s National Front.

It was an election with the lowest rate of turnout since 1969, and nearly 1 in 10 voters exited polling stations having left a blank ballot.

In 2021, 45 percent of ViaVoice’s respondents believed Macron would be a better alternative to Anne Hidalgo, the current Mayor of Paris and member of the Socialist Party.

A further 41 percent saw Macron as more capable of leading France than Yannick Jadot, member of the European Parliament and Greens/Europe Free Alliance.

Additional reporting by Maria Ortega

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