The French president and his ministers seem to be paying a high price for their mismanagement of the Great National Debate.
Free West Media
Polls from April show that the French government has fallen out of favor with voters. An Ifop survey for Paris Match and Sud Radio shows a clear decline in sympathy for Emmanuel Macron and some of his key ministers.
It is Jean-Michel Blanquer who has lost the most ground with his education reforms which were badly received by teachers. Credited with only 29 percent of favorable opinions, the Minister of National Education lost nine points compared to the previous survey.
Just behind him, is Emmanuel Macron with a drop of five points, or 34 percent of favorable opinions.
The drop is the direct consequence of his mismanagement of the Great National Debate. Ministers François de Rugy, Marlène Schiappa and Christophe Castaner were also sanctioned the poll revealed, losing respectively five, four and three points.
In the government, only ministers from the right-leaning party Les Républicains, including Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (46 percent, +2), Bruno Le Maire (43 percent, +3) and Gérald Darmanin (31 percent, +1) remain relatively buoyant.
Notably on the right, Laurent Wauquiez is experiencing a meteoric progression with a score of 36 percent. He has gained a massive eight points compared to the previous survey.
This may be the reward for his choice of naming Catholic conservative and anti-abortionist François-Xavier Bellamy as the head of the list of the coming European elections. Bellamy is a French philosopher, award-winning author, high-school teacher and politician serving as deputy mayor of Versailles.
The objective of Les Républicains to designate Bellamy as its list-topping candidate, has clearly been to attract Marine Le Pen’s National Rally voters.
Wauquiez has managed to rally around him 72 percent (+4) of LR sympathizers, followed by Xavier Bertrand (76 percent) and Nicolas Sarkozy, who scored 87 percent.
The National Rally of Marine Le Pen scored 29 percent, earning another five points. She has thus increased her popularity by 12 points with Les Républicains and three points in her own party. Sadly, this improvement does not allow her to beat Emmanuel Macron, in a duel tested by Ifop.
The polling institute indicates that she is still largely outpaced by the President of the Republic, receiving only 29 percent of favorable opinions against 61 percent.
However, the match between Macron and Wauquiez is much tighter since the two men are separated by only four points in the opinion poll (47 percent against 43 percent).
Surprisingly, in the event of an election, the left would choose… the president of Les Républicains. As for the duel between Macron and Jean-Luc Melenchon, the head of state would have an advantage (48 percent against 45 percent).
