Marine Le Pen holds a commanding lead in the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron, with the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon consolidating second place, according to polling published Monday that points to a 2027 runoff between the two extremes of French politics.
The survey, conducted by Toluna Harris Interactive between September 8 and 10, puts Le Pen at between 33 and 36 percent in the first round depending on the field. Mélenchon, the France Unbowed candidate, reaches the second round in at least three of five scenarios tested and ties for second in a fourth. Le Pen is projected to beat him comfortably in a head-to-head, and in an August round of the same poll she led him 68 to 32.
Édouard Philippe, Macron's former prime minister and the strongest figure remaining on the centre-right, is the only candidate to finish ahead of Mélenchon in any scenario, and does so in just one, tying in another. Every other contender trails throughout. The pattern reflects a centre that has not recovered from Macron's second term and an economy that has given both hardline movements room to grow.
Le Pen's presence in the polling follows a legal reversal that restored her eligibility. The Paris appeal court upheld her embezzlement conviction on July 7 but cut her period of ineligibility to 45 months, 30 of them suspended, leaving a 15-month bar that expired on June 30. She has since announced a cassation appeal and confirmed she is standing. Toluna Harris Interactive attributes part of her recent gains to that sequence.
Both leading candidates have long records in presidential politics. Le Pen ran in 2012, 2017 and 2022, reaching the runoff in the last two and losing to Macron both times. Mélenchon, now 75, ran in the same three cycles without advancing past the first round. Under the French system the top two go through to a second round, and current polling makes a Le Pen against Mélenchon final the most likely outcome.
For French Jewish organisations, a contest between those two would offer little comfort. Mélenchon has drawn sustained criticism from CRIF and other communal bodies over his refusal to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation and over remarks widely condemned as antisemitic, while National Rally's origins under Jean-Marie Le Pen continue to shape communal wariness despite his daughter's efforts to distance the party from them. If the polling holds, voters who reject both would face a choice between them.
