France: Uncertainty surrounding the presidential election prevails - Rabobank

Michael Every, Head of FMR at Rabobank, suggests that there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the French presidential election, where an OpinionWay poll showed Front National’s (FN) Marine Le Pen on 27% for the first round vs. rivals independent Emmanuel Macron and Republican Francois Fillon both on 20%.

Key Quotes

“Moreover, although the poll showed Macron would defeat Le Pen by 58% to 42% in the second round, his lead in the second round has halved in less than two weeks: et voilà - a blow-out in German-French bond spreads. As Bloomberg has noted in two back-to-back stories this week, “Le Pen Lures French Farmers Angered by Worst Crisis in Decades” and “Le Pen Gains in French Polls as Security Concerns Win Voters.” With the FN headquarters being raided by police, and scandals also swirling round Fillon, while Macron is untested in a presidential campaign, the second article rightly concludes, “More than ever, this is a presidential election of unknowns,” or, to put it another way, liberté, égalité, volatilité(?)”