Marine Le Pen, leader of French far-right National Rally party and candidate for the 2022 French presidential election, speaks during a political campaign rally in Perpignan, France, 7 April 2022;
Credit: Reuters / Albert Gea
PARIS (Reuters) - On Friday 8 April 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron voiced regret for starting campaigning late as opinion polls showed him holding a slender lead over the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who he warned would scare investors away from France.
Marine Le Pen has surged in the polls in recent weeks and is expected to face off in the second round against Emmanuel Macron, whose re-election was thought to be a foregone conclusion even a few weeks ago.
Mr Macron is still ahead in the polls for the second-round match-up, but his lead is within the margin of error.
"Who could have understood six weeks ago that all of sudden I would start political rallies, that I would focus on domestic issues when the war started in Ukraine", Emmanuel Macron told RTL radio.
"So it is a fact that I entered [the campaign] even later than I wished", he said, adding that he retained a "spirit of conquest rather than of defeat".
If Marine Le Pen is elected this month, her social programme will drive away international investors, Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with daily newspaper Le Parisien.
"Her programme will create massive unemployment because it will drive international investors away and it will not hold up budget-wise", he said. "Her fundamentals have not changed: it is a racist programme that aims to divide society and is very brutal".
Marine Le Pen told France Info radio on Friday: "Emmanuel Macron does not know my programme... he must think it is that of [far-left contender] Jean-Luc Melenchon".
