PARIS — Emmanuel Macron, who’s leading nationalist challenger Marine Le Pen in the two latest polls ahead of France’s presidential election, visited the Notre-Dame cathedral in a nod to Roman Catholic voters.
An Ipsos-Sopra Steria for France Info and Le Parisien suggested Macron would take 56% of the votes in the April 24 runoff, compared with 44% for Le Pen. An Opinionway-Kea Partners poll for Les Echos and Radio Classique, also published Friday, put the margin at 54% to 46%. Macron’s advantage was beyond the margin of error in both surveys.
Macron went to Notre-Dame on the third anniversary of a fire that damaged the 850-year-old Paris landmark to survey the repairs, rather than as part of his reelection campaign, according to his team.
“After COVID and war in Europe, this is a beacon of hope,” Macron said, according to a summary of his visit provided to reporters by Agence France-Presse.
Many candidates have courted Catholic voters, including Valerie Pecresse and Eric Zemmour, who were knocked out in the first round of voting on Sunday. Macron made overtures even before his official campaign kickoff, telling Paris Match magazine after visiting Pope Francis in November that the two men had been on familiar terms for years.
While a study suggested the French aren’t very religious, about half of the population says it has ties to Catholicism. An Ifop poll for La Croix showed that 40% of the Catholic vote in the first round on April 10 went to far-right candidates including Le Pen, while 29% went to Macron.
In 2017, a similar poll showed that 22% of Catholics voting in the first round then had picked Macron. a centrist who’s since tacked right on issues ranging from taxation to identity.
Macron’s poll lead over Le Pen has widened over the past week, according to a compilation by Bloomberg. But the runoff is likely to be much tighter than last time, when Macron defeated her by more than 30 percentage points.
Notre-Dame isn’t just a religious symbol: it’s also a monument of national pride and the fire that partially destroyed it in 2019 caused widespread outrage.
Macron promised to have the cathedral rebuilt within five years, but the most important parts of the project have yet to begin.
