Macron regrets entering France’s election race late as Le Pen cuts lead

Latest polls show French president facing a significant challenge from his far-right rival

Election posters of French president Emmanuel Macron and his main competitor, Marine Le Pen (AP)

French president Emmanuel Macron has said he regrets not entering the presidential race sooner as opinion polls showed rival Marine Le Pen slashing his lead.

Two days before the first round of the election, the latest BVA poll predicted the incumbent leader will gain 26 per cent of the vote and his main competitor will receive 23 per cent.

Last month, a second term in the Élysée Palace looked all but inevitable for Mr Macron, with the gap between him and Ms Le Pen standing at around ten points.

However, the fortunes of far-right Ms Le Pen have changed in recent weeks, as her focus on the cost-of-living crisis appears to be reaping dividends.

Although Mr Macron, who only announced his candidacy on 3 March, is still the favourite, one poll estimates that he will edge Ms Le Pen by 51.5 per cent to 48.5 percent in a hypothetical second-round contest on 24 April.

This prediction is a far cry from the 2017 election in which Mr Macron comfortably defeated Ms Le Pen by 66 per cent to 34 per cent in the final round of voting.

Speaking on RTL radio on Friday, the French president said: “Who could have understood six weeks ago that all of a sudden I would start political rallies, that I would focus on domestic issues when the war started in Ukraine.”

“So it is a fact that I entered (the campaign) even later than I wished,” he added, saying his was a “spirit of conquest rather than of defeat”.

However, the 44-year-old has recently hinted that Ms Le Pen could pull off an upset. “Nothing is impossible,” he said.

His colleague, Hervé Berville, an En Marche MP, also expressed concern about the upcoming vote.

“Look at what happened in the last six years,” he told the BBC. “Brexit, Trump we’re not trying to scare people, we’re just trying to tell them the election matters, voting matters.”

Mr Macron has warned the electorate against voting for the National Rally leader, saying she threatens the prosperity of the country.

If Ms Le Pen is elected president, international investors will leave France, Mr Macron told Le Parisien.

“Her program 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 program that aims to divide society and is very brutal.”

In response, Ms Le Pen said Mr Macron “does not know my program”.

As his poll lead narrowed, the president hit out at the Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, accusing him of “interfering” in the French election in favour of Ms Le Pen.

Earlier this week, Mr Morawiecki rebuked Mr Macron for talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin in a bid to end the war in Ukraine. “What have you achieved? Did you stop any of these actions? You do not negotiate with criminals, you fight them,” he said.

“Nobody negotiated with Hitler. Would you negotiate with Hitler, with Stalin, with Pol Pot?” he added.

Additional reporting by agencies