French voters are increasingly 'lost'!

(Baonghean) - Up to this point, many French voters have not yet decided which candidate they will vote for in the presidential election in nearly 2 months. It can be said that this year's election has had too many unexpected developments related to financial scandals of the candidates, causing many French people to "lose their way".

It is worth mentioning that these surprises show no signs of stopping, with the latest "victim" being the independent candidate of the "Forward" movement, Emmanuel Macron.

"Happy days are short-lived"

After the right-wing candidate Francois Fillon of the Republicans (LR) party was involved in the scandal called “Penelogate” with accusations of creating fake jobs for his wife and children, illegally earning nearly 1 million Euros while he was a parliamentarian, candidate Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front (FN) party quickly rose to the number 1 position in opinion polls in terms of support rate.

The results of various polls show that Ms. Marine Le Pen's support rate has always remained stable at 26-28% of the vote. In particular, she always achieved over 40% of the vote from the working class.

Francois Fillon may resign after being prosecuted (AFP).

But not long after Francois Fillon, Marine Le Pen herself was also caught up in a financial scandal with accusations of misappropriating 300,000 Euros in the use of assistants, not for the work of the European Parliament but for her FN party.

This incident became an opportunity for the "cleanest" candidate at that time, the liberal candidate of the "Forward" movement, Emmanuel Macron.

Starting by closing the gap with the leading candidate Marine Le Pen with a rate of 22.5% compared to 26.5%, Mr. Emmanuel Macron has continuously scored points for more than 2 weeks.

While the reputation of two potential rivals Fillon and Le Pen has plummeted, Mr. Macron has suddenly become the most potential candidate in the race to the French presidency.

A poll conducted by Harris Interactive on March 9 showed that in the first round, candidate Macron rose to the top with 26% of the vote, surpassing Marine Le Pen with 25% of the vote.

According to this poll, Mr. Macron will continue to defeat his opponent Le Pen in the second round of the election scheduled to take place on May 7 with a support difference of 65% to 35%.

But with nearly two months to go before the first round of the French presidential election - long enough for surprises to continue to emerge - it was Mr. Macron's turn to face a scandal when the Paris prosecutor's office opened a preliminary investigation into him on charges of "bias and complicity" on March 13.

Emmanuel Macron - the latest candidate to be caught up in legal trouble. Photo: Getty

Mr Macron was investigated as Economy Minister at the January 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas - an event for which the French Trade and Investment Promotion Agency awarded the right to organise the event to the US Havas Group instead of conducting the usual "organisation rights" tender.

The French Inspector General of Finance has reported that Mr. Macron had "bias" in organizing this event. Now, some people have spoken out to defend Mr. Macron, saying that this was just an "incident" of the French Trade and Investment Promotion Agency and that Mr. Macron "had absolutely nothing to do with it."

However, when French voters are very sensitive to scandals of candidates in a very confused mood, no one is sure to what extent this incident will affect Mr. Macraon's reputation.

The race of the "second class racers"

This year's French election is reminding many people of last year's US election, when there were many surprises and voters only had a choice between "bad and less bad" options.

Although on the approval rating chart, the top 5 also includes Socialist Party Representative - former Minister of Education Benoît Hamon and leader of the far-left movement "France Undefeated" Jean Luc Mélenchon.

However, all attention up to this point is still focused on the three candidates: Francois Fillon, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron.

However, the situation of all three candidates is not very optimistic: Mr. Fillon has been officially prosecuted, Ms. Le Pen is trying to "buy time" by refusing to meet with the police, and Mr. Macron is also starting to get into trouble with the law.

When no candidate has a campaign platform that is considered outstanding and truly different, when all three candidates are now "stained", predicting the winner of the election rounds in late April and early May is increasingly like a guessing game.

Despite the scandal, Marine Le Pen still has a fairly stable support rate.

With Mr. Fillon having announced that he would withdraw if he was prosecuted, all the efforts of waiting and building the team of the Republicans (LR) party over the past 5 years have been "down the drain".

It is almost impossible for the party to choose a replacement for Mr. Fillon when there is only one day left until the deadline (March 17) for candidates to gather enough votes from local MPs and representatives to officially become candidates.

If Mr. Fillon does not follow through on his promise and continues to “fight to the end,” his chances of winning are slim because it depends so much on the judges’ decisions.

Although it can be said that Mr. Fillon has fallen behind, there is no guarantee that Ms. Marine Le Pen and Mr. Emmanuel Macron will maintain their current pace to smoothly reach the finish line.

According to plan, the five candidates leading the polls in the race to the Elysée Palace will debate live on the private French TV channel TF1 on March 20.

This is an opportunity for candidates to overcome the scandals that surround them and win more votes from voters. But who will do it? This is a question that analysts and the French people themselves have not yet been able to answer.

Thuy Ngoc