I take it Peter that you mean the redistribution of Centrist votes that Macron will or could lose in the 1st round (if indeed, he runs again for presidency for a second term, he probably will again as he is young etc. but who knows these days, but let’s assume that he does).
Yes, it could be one of the first round enjeux of this election but your question scenario is predicated upon Macron losing votes in the first round, not sure he’ll lose that many TBH, he’s on 24% of voting intention in the polls as we speak or thereabouts, so exactly the same % as he recorded in April 2017.
But it all depends of course on what the Left does. If, as I suspect, they’ll faff about and bicker yet again, fail to show at least a modicum of unity and go to battle as a disorganised and fragmented rabble, then Macron has nothing to fear from them and should get his 24% or thereabouts, so the same as in 2017, and should therefore make it to the 2nd round. If the Left, heaven forfend, shows more unity, more maturity and runs only 2 candidates for instance, then Macron could struggle to get to the second round.
But it’s such a long way off, over 12 months hence and predictions are so damn casse-gueule (dicey, iffy). And we haven’t even entered the “floaters” into this equation, there’s an increasing number of politically homeless voters who decide on their preference very late on, electorates are more fluid than before.
It’s amusing to look at predictions made for 2017 (based on polls) one year before the elections, so winter/spring 2016. It is humbling as they were so farcically off beam. Most polls gave Sarkozy as the winner of the rightwing primaries and therefore the candidate for the Right in the second round.
Blimey, how wrong they were… Sarko did not even make it to the 2nd round of the Primaries (he came 3rd, way behind Fillon and Juppé), never mind making the 2nd round of the elections.
Polls also saw Hollande as the main candidate for the Left. According to polls he would get 19% in the first round. How funny that prognosis looks now… Hollande was so humiliatingly low in the polls in the autumn 2016 (as I wrote in my previous post, his popularity ratings at the end of 2016 hovered around the 4% mark, an all-time low) that he didn’t bother throwing his hat into the Primaries ring. Wise man…
Polls also saw the centrist François Bayrou (MoDem party, a sort of French LibDem) come 4th in the first round, with 13%. Well, Bayrou didn’t go for it in the end as he was very low in the polls (barely 5%, about 2 million votes) so why bother he reasoned and, as a seasoned politician, he saw that there was a better strategy to adopt for him than waste time & energy and alienate people in that bitter campaign, in particularly fellow centrist Macron. So, after saying for months that he’d run for president, when he saw that Fillon was losing lots of support 3 weeks after the scandal broke out, which was benefiting Macron who, suddenly, had a chance to win, Bayrou decided to pull out and back Macron instead. Of course he packaged it differently so as to make it look like it was a laudable altruistic decision on his part, i.e “for the good of France”, in a Front Républicain spirit so as not to favour Le Pen etc. but that’s what happened, it really was always just about him (was desperate to get a senior ministerial position) and his MoDem party (good negotiations would ensure a good result in the Législatives and therefore a sizeable parliamentary group).
What Bayrou did was that he made a pact with Macron at the end of February 2017, an “échange de bons procédés” as the French call it (an exchange of favours, you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours). He negotiated the following deal: he called for his 2 million+ sympathisers/putative voters to plump for Macron and in exchange he asked Macron (should he win) for a senior ministerial portfolio for himself and a couple of his faithful sidekicks (such as the recently-deceased Marielle de Sarnez) + also of course a preferential treatment in the following Législatives, i.e no En Marche candidates in some constituencies winnable by Bayrou’s party, the MoDem, explains why MoDem got 42 MPs as opposed to 2 in the previous Législatives in 2012.
And that’s exactly what happened. Macron bagged his 2 million votes, which gave him a huge boost to get to the second round, and Macron reciprocated by appointing Bayrou as Justice minister and gave 2 of Bayrou’s faithfuls ministerial portfolios too (Marielle de Sarnez got the European Affairs ministry and Sylvie Goulard the Defence. Except of course that a barely one month later Bayrou & his crew were forced to resign over the scandal of the misuse of EU funds – fictitious employment of parliamentary assistants, what happened to the Rassemblement National too, to the tune of €5 million –, which anyway suited Macron to a tee as by then he had a clear majority in parliament with 308 MPs and therefore reasoned that he didn’t need Bayrou’s 42 MPs (Macron does now as En Marche has lost ~40 MPs since then and has no absolute majority, but thanks to the 40-odd MoDem MPs he’s allied to he still holds a majority), and didn’t need to have to put up with the overbearing Bayrou to whom he naturally felt indebted).
[Rien ne s’est passé comme prévu
Premier enseignement : rien ne s’est passé comme prévu. Les sondeurs envisageaient à l’époque une candidature de Nicolas Sarkozy pour la droite - et donc sa victoire à la primaire fin 2016 - et celle du président socialiste sortant, François Hollande. Dans cette configuration, Marine Le Pen était donnée en tête avec 28% des intentions de vote, suivi par Nicolas Sarkozy (20%) dans un mouchoir avec François Hollande (19%). Le président du MoDem, François Bayrou arrivait lui quatrième avec 13%. Finalement, parmi ces quatre, seule Marine Le Pen a bien été candidate.](Présidentielle : que disaient les sondages en janvier 2016?)