Rumours are flying round that the mainstream press and polls underestimated Marine Le Pen's popularity in the French election the way they did Trump's popularity. That Le Pen would have won were it not for the tearing of 15 million voting ballots in advance so that French law would declare them invalid and fail to count them. The National Front has complained that in several places voters received voting ballots for both candidates sent to their homes, but all the forms for Le Pen were torn. The happened in Ardèche, Allier, Savoie, Loire, Yvelines, Eure-et-Loir, and Hérault. The National Front addressed its complaints to the National Commission on Election Supervision (la Commission nationale de contrôle des élections), which replied that it would ask the Minister for the Interior to take every step to see that these facts, if they were proven, would not alter the validity of the vote count. In particular by asking voters to use the voting papers provided in the voting booths [rather than those sent to their homes]. Source: Reuters "Le FN se plaint de bulletins de Marine Le Pen déchirés," 6 May 2015.
Unexpectedly Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the president of the Stand up France (Debout la France) has backed Marine Le Pen for President of France. He feels that France must be saved from Macron's savage globalism and believes that many Republicans will join him in this. One can see that on the face of it, Le Pen has slightly fewer prospective votes than Macron, if you go by the form on the nine candidates who didn't make it to the second round and how their voters might now vote. But Le Pen is running a superb campaign and elite favorite, Emmanuel Macron has already tripped over his highly publicised very expensive shoes. As Le Pen has implied, now that the field has narrowed, people will be able to see both candidates more clearly. [The original title of this article was "Le Pen's chances as President improve as Stand Up France's leader backs her & Macron looms."]
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